Equality and Inclusivity

Celebrate good times, c’mon!

I’m channeling Kool and the Gang for this week’s blog because June is typically THE month for celebrations, whether it’s a graduation, a wedding, or just heralding the start of summer.

We here at Security Systems News have a few reasons to celebrate during this second week of June, as we recently announced another award that we’re so proud to be a part of, and we’re also adding another prominent security professional to our Advisory Board.

With June being Pride Month, which is all about inclusivity, SSN recently announced a partnership with The Monitoring Association (TMA) to create the first-ever Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Leadership Award, with the goal of promoting and fostering a more inclusive workforce throughout the security industry.

As we know, today’s business world requires that companies create, foster, and encourage diversity and inclusion in the workplace in order to be successful. By doing so, as we stated in the official announcement of this new award, this “stimulates innovation; drives better decisions; makes teams more agile; and results in better business outcomes for employees and customers. These improvements result in higher levels of employee engagement and better financial performance.”

The award will be given to TMA members who demonstrate a commitment to DEI policies and programs across their organization and will be presented during TMA’s annual meeting, taking place Oct. 29-Nov. 2, at the JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort in Florida.

As TMA CEO Celia T. Besore stated in announcing the DEI Award, “TMA, together with Security Systems News, seeks to be an agent of change and to raise awareness of the significance and the value of DEI initiatives within the security business sector. We’re proud to introduce this new award as a means to bring this critical issue to the forefront, to inform, and to empower companies to embrace and embed these core principles.”

Amen, Celia. We can’t wait to proudly present this award in the fall.

Another reason to celebrate this week is that we announced the addition of Elisa Mula, Founder of EM Designs (EMD) and Moms in Security Global Outreach (MISGO), to our Advisory Board.

For those wondering what our Advisory Board does, they play an integral role in planning our annual SecurityNext conference, with the next one taking place in 2023.

Their input on topics for our educational sessions and speakers – anything related to physical and cybersecurity when it comes to the commercial, residential, monitoring and supplier sides of the business - directly contributes to how much our attendees get out of their experience at SecurityNext.

In addition, some of our board members are speakers themselves at SecurityNext, so you know that you’ll be absorbing a wealth of knowledge when you come to our conference.

Of course, Elisa’s accomplishments in her security career more than qualify her to join our highly regarded board members. But something else stood out when Elisa joined our board, and this is something that we can take pride in pointing out.

Elisa’s addition means that our Advisory Board is now made up of seven women and seven men, signifying an equal number of women and men on our board! And in an industry that has been considered male-dominant for decades, the fact that the SSN Advisory Board now features a 50-50 ratio of women and men speaks volumes on the tremendous strides that women have made in the security industry! Talk about an inclusive group of security professionals!

Equality. Inclusivity. These two words are making me want to stop typing and start celebrating!