About this event

In 2025, The WIMDI Speaker Series is inviting engaging speakers each month to give interactive talks on topics that help women kill it at work.

Missed a WIMDI webinar live? Subscribe and catch-up at WIMDIs YouTube Channel

Welcome to Talk 2 of 13 - How to Pitch Ideas (So People Actually Hear Them)

Women suffering from idea stealing is a tale as old as time. But there’s something even worse: Idea ignoring!

If you’ve ever wondered if your microphone is selectively on the fritz in your meetings because nobody seems to care about the talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before idea you’ve been sharing over and over again for the last few weeks, then we’ve got the perfect thing for you.

Most of us struggle to pitch our ideas at work in a way that decision makers can actually hear and fall in love with. We tend to share too much information, or the wrong information, or the right information, but in a terminally insecure sounding voice where everything you say somehow sounds like a question? And suddenly you find yourself marinating in a confused moment of silence before someone changes the subject entirely and moves to the next order of business. So much for your amazing idea making it onto the roadmap. Ugh.

Getting your ideas heard and adopted at work is essential to your ability to lead and move up the chain of command. You’ve got to be able to rally folks around your vision if you want to be an effective leader. And the good news is, it’s a completely learnable skill!

This talk will focus on techniques for sharing your ideas with decision makers so they can see the potential you and your ideas bring to the table. We’ll cover:

• The 4 key principles to successfully pitching your ideas
• What executives and senior managers are listening for
• How to come across as confident and credible so people will back your idea
• Demonstrations of exactly what a good pitch sounds like – and what it doesn’t sound like!

The goal of this talk is to help you learn how to pitch your ideas so they get adopted – and you get the credit for your amazing business insights!

-------------

Holly Burton

Holly is an executive coach for women in male-dominated industries. She works one-on-one with ambitious women to help them lead, get promoted, and create the careers they actually want in industries they love.

As a mining engineer for the first ten years of her career, Holly was exposed to one of the most male-dominated spaces -- just 17% female. She uses the unique perspective she gained as a woman in mining, alongside her obsessive nerdiness for all things feminism, leadership, and career to help women create the working world they deserve while they wait for the rest of society to catch up.

-------------

Timeline of Our Fun Event:

• 5:30 pm - The event starts with mingling, socializing, and small-group networking. We recommend putting your webcam on* (even if you've already transitioned to work-is-over-dress-like-a-slob mode) to help you make the strongest possible connections with your new WIMDI friends!
• 5:45 pm - The talk starts! Most talks contain interactive elements, question prompts for you to complete, or other activities that make multi-tasking difficult. Get out your notepad and prepare to soak up some knowledge.
• 6:45 pm - It's #WIMDIasks time! We end the night with our interactive community-based resource that lets you crowdsource any challenge in your life through the network of all the WIMDIs in the room.

How Online Events Work:

• We'll email you the login info for the Zoom meeting 5 minutes before the start of the event.
• Can't find your login details? Check your spam for mail from WIMDI. If you still can't find the info, email hello@wimdi.com and we'll get you all sorted out.
• Our events are interactive and will require your attention and input throughout the course of the event.

Attendance Notes:

1) Gender:

This event is open to individuals of any gender identity.

2) Code of Conduct:

By attending this event, you agree to adhere to WIMDI's code of conduct, which you can find at wimdi.com/code-of-conduct-and-policy.

3) Privacy, Photography and Recording*:

This event is being recorded for release on the WIMDI YouTube channel. By attending you consent to the terms laid out at wimdi.com/video-release/. We understand that some of our members may not be comfortable being recorded, and we don’t want this to stop anyone from attending. Our Video Policy has helpful tips for staying internet-anonymous at our events. Learn more at wimdi.com/video-policy/

Online WIMDI events use Zoom, as such we cannot guarantee that no photos, screenshots, or recordings will be taken of you during the event by other attendees. We love it when our members connect at our events using both video and audio, but we understand if our members prefer to participate with their video turned off to preserve (more of) their privacy.

4) Donations to PAFNW (Pacific Association of First Nations Women)

As part of this event we have the option of donation to the Pacific Association of First Nations Women for their scholarship fund for Indigenous women and girls. This is a concrete way - beyond land acknowledgement - to redistribute some of our collective financial privilege to support Indigenous women.