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Global branding agency How&How has launched GetEven, a pro-bono, studio-funded initiative designed to support women in the creative industry. We chatted with founder Cat to discover more.
With gender disparity still a significant issue across multiple creative sectors, GetEven is a new initiative that aims to provide women with expert advice on various essential topics, including leadership, confidence building, financial literacy, and salary negotiation.
The idea for GetEven originated from a growing demand for mentorship and guidance from female creatives. “We get several requests a day from female creatives looking for feedback, mentorship, and advice in navigating their careers,” explains How&How founder Cat How. “We never have enough time in the day to get back to everyone with actionable advice, and I felt like I was failing these calls for help. So we decided to launch the initiative as a studio-run project where every female in the team would help shape what we did.”
Rather depressingly, despite women making up 63% of graphic design students in the UK, they hold only 17% of creative director positions. Additionally, diverse representation in leadership roles sits at just 12%, and the gender pay gap remains at 20.3%. These stark statistics underscore the urgent need for projects like GetEven to address the imbalance and help women take control of their careers.
So what does it entail? Initially, there are four webinars, each designed around themes suggested by the creative community. How&How gathered input from their followers on Instagram and LinkedIn, resulting in topics that resonate with women facing challenges like imposter syndrome and navigating leadership roles. “We asked what they were worried about or wanted to learn. We got hundreds of replies, which we then sifted through and bundled into pillars,” Cat shares. “We chose the four with the highest number of people asking about them.”
Each webinar will feature a fireside chat with a female How&How employee and an expert coach, followed by a helpful Q&A session. Attendees can also join an aftercare community on LinkedIn to continue conversations and seek further advice. This supportive online community aims to foster networking and mentorship opportunities beyond the webinars themselves. As Cat explains, “We wanted the Aftercare Group to be a place where women could make, develop, and establish these connections after the course had finished.”
The series started in late September with a session titled Know Your Worth, focusing on financial literacy. Led by ex-How&How brand consultant Nina Arshagouni, financial educator Alina Burlacu, and Mykail James, it aimed to break down the stigma around discussing money. The experts provided actionable advice on developing good money habits, negotiating salaries, and setting up financial futures. Cat emphasises the importance of this topic: “So much about financial literacy is empowerment… knowing your basics when it comes to finances… will help women in any later negotiating situation and at least give them more of a chance in evening out the very sizable odds.”
Upcoming sessions include Make Yourself Heard on 23 October, which will address confidence building and overcoming imposter syndrome. This will be followed by How to Fail on 12 November, which covers how to handle failure and burnout. The final session, Learn to Lead, will be held on 11 December to explore leadership skills. On that occasion, Cat How herself will be joined by executive coach and author Alisa Cohn.
A central mission of GetEven is to create a nurturing community for women, both online and offline – something that resonates with our own focus at Creative Boom. The LinkedIn aftercare group is designed to support continued learning and interaction among those attending the webinars. Even better, there will be an in-person celebration in December at How&How’s London studio. “We knew that we wanted to physicalise this experience too somehow—to make these connections real,” says Cat. “Because I firmly believe that when you meet someone, you do form a closer and more meaningful connection.”
The initiative’s goal is clear: to empower women in the creative industry by providing them with the tools and confidence they need to succeed. As Cat states, “Success for me would be for someone to be able to take even just one actionable takeout from each of the sessions that could have a direct and lasting impact on their life from that moment onwards.”
By addressing the specific challenges women face in the creative industry and offering practical, actionable advice, GetEven seeks to create a more equitable landscape. For many, the initiative offers an invaluable opportunity to gain insight, develop new skills, and form lasting connections with other creatives. Sound good? Join the private LinkedIn group or follow How&How’s page for upcoming events.
