When Women Step Forward - We All Win

BY MI ELFVERSON | FRSA

Mi is a brand photographer, visibility coach and our EyeStorm Women director. She regularly shares her thoughts on the state of affairs, books, films and ideas around women’s rights and gender equality.

The history of EyeStorm Women

You may wonder who’s behind EyeStorm Women and how it all came about. This is the story of how a passionate woman created a safe space for women who want to step forward with more confidence, impact and joy.

Meet our founder, Mi Elfverson, photographer, visibility expert and our EyeStorm Women speaker coach.

I founded my business, The Vlog Academy, in 2015, and it quickly grew to a corporate training company with both in-person and online workshops and events.

I love working with my passion – video, people and storytelling! But soon after I started holding corporate workshops, I noticed something I didn’t quite like – and this was the beginning to a huge shift for me – and the birth of EyeStorm Women.

Teaching mixed group of men and women

I’d go up to the heart of London, take the elevator up to the 9th floor of a fancy building, enter a room with huge windows overlooking the financial hub of our capital.

Teas and coffees, large monitors and comfortable boardroom chairs. Everything sorted, easy bums on seats as it’s called in the industry, all I have to do is to rock up with my kit and presentation.

Of course it’s taken about 20 years for me to build up the knowledge and formula to be able to do this, four years of film studies, editing courses, industry experience, thousands and thousands of pounds worth of camera equipment and lots of work before I was feeling even remotely confident to step forward as a visibility expert.

But there I was, in a room with a mixed group of men and women from the same company – highly educated and skilled at what they do. They would have the same expertise, same job titles, same experience. Their boss has signed them up, they’re all on company time, and they all need to learn how to communicate effectively on camera.

Then it happens.

When I set up the video equipment and ask the participants to grab a microphone each and start recording a video, something predictable and devastating happens – every single time.

The men step forward and grab a microphone. The women step back and just want to melt into the wall.

They literally, physically move backwards. Their hearts sink and they just want to disappear and go home.

The Invisible Women

It’s not about capability. It’s not about ability. It’s about centuries of women being invisible.

These women are every bit as knowledgeable and experienced as their male colleagues. But somewhere along the way, they’ve internalised the message that they shouldn’t take up space unless they’re perfect; looking pretty, their hair in order, being articulate, elegant and charismatic.

We women are feeding into centuries of exploitation of women as objects or servants. Expectations that women should be seen but not heard, unless we have a very specific purpose, such as being in the role of the cook, a singer, a dancer or a model.

The sad thing is, that mothers often are the ones to tell their little girls to sit nicely, be quiet, never interrupt and never say no. We’re told it’s not about us, not to be selfish and not to stand out too much in a room. No man wants a bossy girl. She won’t get married, no one will want her. Let him have the floor or he’ll get upset.

When women hide from sharing their expertise, when they allow their subconscious to tell them they’re not good enough – they’re not just hurting themselves, they’re actually depriving our whole world of the women’s knowledge and perspectives we so desperately need.

Look around you at the mess in our world. Look at who got us here. It wasn’t the women. Because most women have been denied any power.

We need more women at the helm, and we need them to feel confident stepping forward.

The Birth of EyeStorm Women

When the pattern of hesitation grew strong enough, I decided that it was time for women to get their own, separate, training programme.

Women needed longer to get comfortable seeing and hearing themselves on camera. They needed a more holistic approach that addressed the deeper blocks and fears that often stem back decades.

They need a group of just women to feel safe and supported.

And so the EyeStorm visibility programme for Women was born, now The WIZ for short.

From Hollywood to Hove – actually.

I’d spent 25 years in high-end film and TV production, working on everything from Kellogg’s adverts to James Bond films. I’d met international stars and filmed huge Hollywood productions. But nothing – and I mean nothing – gives me more joy now than watching a woman break through her blocks and step into her true power with joy.

You may wonder where the name EyeStorm came from? It just came from the nowhere. I loved it, it resonated with our tech world being based on i-Items, but more than anything, it represented the safe haven in the middle of the social media storm we’re constantly surrounded by as small business owners. EyeStorm is a calm space where you can harness the power of social media, without feeling overwhelmed or lost in the whirlwinds of online havoc.

From Confidence to Community

As I started working more directly with women, I couldn’t stop noticing the inequality – on so many other levels. The pandemic hit us all bad, but the men quickly grabbed themselves the spare room of the house, while the women were left to lean on the kitchen counter after the crumbs were moved aside and she had finished the kids’ home schooling. It was a disastrous time for women all around the world – where the carefully veiled gender inequalities suddenly were ripped open in full daylight, even in the west.

EyeStorm Women felt the need to expand and organise more events about gender equality and put out more empowerment content for women. We organised conferences, hosted podcasts, and I personally became more involved with UN Women UK and participated in the CSW conferences.

Suddenly we got more recognised, and we won the Women’s Community of the Year award in 2022 from Digital Women.

It was time for the next, and perhaps the most important addition to our events: the EyeStorm Speaker Programme for Women.

We were already aware of the lack of women in newspapers and in decision making roles, but the lack of women speakers at conferences – even on topics for women – were just appalling.

And of course, as always with women – if we don’t step forward to speak up, no one will ask our opinion.

So after sitting through many many many conferences, seminars, speaker events, TEDx talks, summits and ceremonies, plus with a background in theatre, musicals and film production, as well as covering all of the above from behind the camera, I realised I had enough on my feet to combine my camera training with speaker training.

I love teaching! I love sharing my knowledge to support someone else to thrive from the learning!

And the speaker programme quickly became our most important empowering element for EyeStorm Women – our flagship training with a live event where the women got to try out their talk in front of a live audience while being filmed. A most rewarding practice and experience for our participants.

We got a grant from the Brighton & Hove Council and we won the Innovation & Excellence Award from Global Wire! We are now a multi award winning community with over a thousand group members and we’ve taken hundreds of women through our training.

The speaker programme attracts women from all walks of life. From doctors to comedians and authors. All of them feeling the need to step up their confidence when speaking in public, or in front of any kind of audience.

The progress we saw after the training was actually quite mind-blowing – I think even more for the participants. It was such a powerful, horrendously scary, deep and rewarding journey, that took them to some of the darkest moments of their life – to the incredible moment of relief as they received the live audience’s ovations after finishing their final talks.

It feels huge to see these women deliver their talks, and the continued progress they’ve made after is phenomenal. They’ve delivered keynote speeches, applied for TEDx talks (and been accepted) started their own training programmes and also, some say that even their home life has become better.

You Don't Need to Be Loud to Have Impact

We know that when women step back, we all lose. And when brilliant women hide their expertise because they don’t feel “ready” or “perfect enough,” society misses out on solutions, perspectives, and leadership that could bring forward a more equal society.

Our job as women – as business owners, experts, mothers, mentors, sisters – is to set a brave example. To show up as we are and share our passion. To lead the way for our daughters so they don’t just desire, but expect to be a natural part of management, advisory, and decision-making in our society.

You don’t need to be loud or angry to have impact. You don’t need to transform into someone you’re not. It’s not even about you in the end – it’s about your knowledge and how you can support others by sharing your expertise.

EyeStorm Women is here with personal and corporate training for women. Because we believe that all women deserve to be seen and heard, wherever they are – and whoever they are.

Welcome to join us!

www.eyestorm.org.uk/public-speaker-programme-for-women-2025