Next Lev'Elles founders on fostering female leadership in games
Danielle Partis
News Editor
Tuesday 12th April 2022
It's no big secret that gender inequality in the games industry is still an ongoing issue. Struggles to hire female and non-binary talent, retain them, and push them into senior and management positions later down the line persist, and that is demonstrated by numbers across a majority of games companies annually.
This is partially shown in regular gender pay gap reports, which repeatedly show discrepancies in salaries between men and women, with much less of the latter filling senior roles across the board.
Efforts are afoot to fix this, and one such initiative comes in the form of Next Lev'Elles, a series of virtual conferences designed to promote female leadership in games and inspire the next generation of women to move into the industry. It also doubles as a charity fundraising event; money raised is donated to centres dotted around Montreal set up to support vulnerable women.
It's founded and headed by Nedjma Belbahri, director of communications at Square Enix Montréal, Ludia Games' communications, events and culture manager Junel Popp, and Gameloft Montréal director of communications Geneviève Sorel.
Next Lev'Elles was born from shared ideals and common values, during a conversation about how the trio could celebrate International Women's Day 2021. All three studios are based in Montréal, so they focused initially on impacting talent and supporting those in need within the city.
"As heads of communications in our respective studios, we have created a support system to brainstorm ideas and seek advice from each other," Popp tells GamesIndustry.biz. "Our three studios, and ourselves as individuals, are driven by a common desire to encourage greater diversity and
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