DIVERSITY POLICY

As part of our mission to promote excellence, the IMW is committed to fostering a culture of diversity, inclusion, and ongoing transformation. We believe diversity makes organisations more successful and communities more fulfilling. By actively cultivating a diverse community of professionals, we benefit from a richer mix of ideas, perspectives, and life experiences that expands our thinking and our possibilities. We value and respect diversity of all kinds – within our staff, our membership, our students, and the global wine industry.

ACTION PLAN

• Develop and implement an e-learning ‘introduction to diversity’ programme, completion of which will be a mandatory requirement for the executive office, Council, honorary officers and everyone involved in education.
• Engage an external facilitator to assist with face-to-face training and discussions around the subtleties surrounding all aspects of diversity.
• Undertake an audit of the current membership and the student body to more fully understand how people self-identify, in order to create a base line from which we can monitor how the IMW is performing in its commitment to becoming a far more inclusive organisation. This request – and the following list is not exhaustive – will include questions on ethnicity, gender identity, country of origin and preferred language.
• Update the admissions process to capture data on how individuals self-identify.
• Prepare a master list of BIPOC speakers with expertise across all sectors of the global wine industry, in order to ensure that the IMW includes a diverse range of speakers at all events, online webinars, etc.
• Ensure that mentors assigned to BIPOC students have the skill set to create an environment in which everyone feels welcomed and supported within the study programme.
• Diversity within the wine industry will be a topic of debate at the IMW symposium to be held in Adelaide in June 2022.
• Explore opportunities for BIPOC scholarships to address the economic challenges of participating on the IMW study programme.
• Explore ‘outreach’ opportunities with education bodies that often act as a feeder into the IMW.
• Review the IMW study syllabus to ensure this includes issues surrounding corporate social responsibility and diversity within the industry.

We recognise that as an organisation, we are now embarked upon a process of transformation to ensure that the composition of our membership more truly reflects the diversity of the industry in which we operate.