AICP Midwest’s Inaugural Women’s Forum a Smashing Success [Exclusive Photos]

The Midwest Chapter of AICP hosted its first Women’s Forum, and the landmark event was a massive success, attracting a capacity crowd of creatives and producers across the industry. The Forum was hosted at Optimus in downtown Chicago on May 21. The mission of the Women’s Forum is for AICP members to connect junior creatives and producers in the industry with their more senior or executive level counterparts.

Headlining the Midwest Women’s Forum were Chapter President Lisa Masseur, Founder and EP of Tessa Films, and Sheila R. Brown, AICP’s VP, Equity & Inclusion. In bringing the Women’s Forum to the Midwest Chapter, their goal is to continue to serve AICP members while providing an opportunity for women at varying stages of their careers to develop contacts and uncover mentorship opportunities.

“This is what AICP does for its members, beyond the business practices, contracts and guidelines,” says Masseur. “It’s providing a platform for professional growth, and finding ways for our members in our production and post community to grow their careers and to flourish in what’s become a challenging and fast-changing environment.”

Here are some fabulous photos from the Women’s Forum, courtesy of photographer M. Lamourt…

The event kicked off with comments from Masseur and Brown, then proceeded into small group discussions led by a variety of local production and post leaders. The groups swapped tables every ten to twelve minutes, creating a ‘speed networking’ style that sparked lively conversations and rapid exchange of ideas, suggestions and contact info. “The idea is that the juniors leave with between 50 to 75 new industry contacts by the end of the evening,” says Masseur.

The list of discussion leaders who took part included:

• Tracey Khan, Managing Director, Indigo Goodbit
• Heather Richardson, Executive Producer,  Cutters Studios
• Jenny Schaye, Editor, Optimus
• Laurie Adrianopoli, Freelance EP
• Jenny Lumpkin, Global Director of Production, Laird and Good Company
• Ariana Ziae-Mohensi, CG Lead, Framestore
• Kat Pryor, Senior Editor, Utopic. 

Click here for more from AICP Midwest.

The Women’s Forum was initially launched by AICP’s East Chapter, and has also been held in L.A., hosted by AICP West. Both the East and West events were led by East Chapter President Gloria Pitagorsky of Heard City and West Chapter President Yvette Cobarrubias of Cosmo Street.

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