Top-tier women from the European media industry will meet today in Brussels for the first European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Women Executives in the Media (WEM) summit.

WEM, the brainchild of EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre, will become an annual forum for women media executives to network and share professional experiences, and work towards achieving greater influence in their sector.

Among other C-level positions she has held, Ms Deltenre was CEO of Schweizer Fernsehen (SF), the leading public TV broadcaster in German-speaking Switzerland, before taking the top job at the EBU in January, 2010.

She said: “The media both reflects and creates socio-cultural realities, and is a powerful force in shaping public opinion and culture; but women are still badly underrepresented in the upper echelons of the sector. I wanted to enable women media leaders to meet face to face once a year to share ideas and experiences. WEM is about bringing together media professionals with similar profiles so that we can learn from each other and be proactive about gender equality in the media.”

French political journalist Michèle Cotta, formerly president of Radio France, director-general at France 2 and news director at TF1, will be the moderator.

Issues to be covered include:

• Is there a future for quality journalism?
• Europe, where do we go from here?
• The dual European model of broadcasting.
• The importance of a network for women executives.

The first WEM will take place at the EBU’s Brussels offices, but it is hoped future editions will be hosted by a different EBU Member each year.