From the Podium to the Boardroom: Encouraging Gender Parity in Scholarly Publishing

This is the accepted manuscript of a paper published in the April 2016 issue of Learned Publishing (DOI: 10.1002/leap.1022) 

Summary: As an industry, scholarly publishing attracts more women than men. Yet despite their majority, there is a concerning dearth of women in the industry’s most senior positions. Furthermore, and, we will posit, contributing to this leadership divide, there is a significant gender gap in speaking opportunities at major industry conferences. In this paper, we will present the research that supports these claims and offer three distinct challenges—to publishing organisations; to the women that work for them; and to the community at large—to help address this imbalance and improve gender parity, both at the podium and in the boardroom.