Emiro Mendoza and Jonathan Palmer Announced as Speakers at ELVIS' LGBTQ+ Workshop

Emiro Mendoza and Jonathan Palmer have joined Charlie Craggs as speakers at a free workshop hosted by creative agency ELVIS. The workshop aims to offer LGBTQ+ young people an insight into a career in the advertising industry, ahead of Pride in London on Saturday 6th July.

Developed by Elli Stone and James Bougourd, an ELVIS creative team with a passion for inclusive advertising, the day-long event on Thursday 4th July aims to give queer youth the boost they need to begin a career in marketing. With inspirational speakers and hands-on exercises, the workshop is open to all LGBTQ+ youth (aged 18 or over) looking for their place in the industry.

The speaker line-up for the event now includes:

-     Charlie Craggs, trans activist and founder of Nail Transphobia

-     Emiro Mendoza, named one of the top ten LGBTQ+ Inspirational Leaders at the British LGBT Awards 2018, with over 13 years’ industry experience in Latin America and the UK

-     Jonathan Palmer, head of social at Vizeum, founding co-chair of the Dentsu &PROUD network and founding board member of Pride AM

Emma Gardner, managing partner, Operations at ELVIS, who also hosted the agency’s panel event, ELVIS Outspoken: The Disability Debate in November 2018, will introduce the session.

Elli and James developed the idea for the workshop following a diversity-focussed inspiration mission to New York earlier this year.

James Bougourd, junior creative, ELVIS, commented: “Queer people belong in the creative industries, but 52% of people see the LGBTQ+ community as “invisible” in advertising. So how do we fix this? Simply hiring LGBTQ+ people isn’t enough. We need to make our industry a safe space and nurture queer talent from the ground up so we can create work that feels authentic and inclusive.”

Elli Stone, junior creative, ELVIS, added: “For our industry to represent a community authentically, those people need to be behind the scenes, not just in the ads; so we wanted to do something to inspire more LGBTQ+ people to start their career in advertising.”

LGBTQ+ young people (aged 18 and over) who are interested in attending the free workshop are invited to email outspoken@elvislondon.com with their name, date of birth and a brief outline of why they’d like to attend.