Love, Respect, Empower: How the Pride Community is Empowering Others at Nine and Beyond

This Pride month, we’re highlighting the impactful work of our Pride Community and the passionate individuals who lead it. Co-chairs Alexander Needs, Director of Video Content, Partnerships & Growth in Broadcast and Streaming, Imran Abdulah, Head of Digital Content nine.com.au, and Chloe Nott, Senior Client Partner, Travel and Luxury, share their insights on how their ERG’s initiatives impact and make waves in the wider Nine community and beyond.

Representing Nine’s diverse ecosystem

Nine’s Pride Community, established in 2022, is one of four key ERGs dedicated to advancing Nine’s diversity and inclusion (D&I) goals, fostering shared values, and driving positive change within the organisation. The Pride Community is built on three core pillars: creating a safe and open workplace, fostering connections through engaging events, and driving meaningful change and awareness for the LGBTQIA+ community. 

Reflecting on its inception, Alexander shares, “when the Communities were started I was lucky enough to be asked to be one of the chairs. We started off quite small with a few key people and now we’ve grown to over 100 members.” 

The group’s growth has been crucial in representing the diverse employees across Nine’s ecosystem. “Our Community exists in almost all parts of the business and each part of those businesses brings a unique element not only to Nine Pride but helping the Nine Pride message go out into other places differently” says Imran. “The LGBTQIA+ community tackles quite a large cross-section of people so it’s really important to make sure that each of those letters are represented amongst Nine as much as possible.” 

Empowerment through Community

The Community provides a visible and safe space for employees to bring their authentic selves to work, fostering a sense of belonging. “Empowerment is best achieved by people feeling comfortable and that they can bring as much of themselves to work as they choose.”  Alexander says. “Having a visible community that has got nothing to do with your day job that has all different levels of the business participating in it is a really inclusive and safe space for people to connect with each other.” 

The Community’s existence, Chloe notes, offers a sense of belonging and camaraderie. “It’s where there’s someone safe you can talk to, and is a community in the workplace that can mirror your own community you might have built outside of work.”

When reflecting on the members of the Pride Community, Alex shares that they are the heart of what’s important. “They are the community. We’re co-chairs, but we’re only current chairs. Our members are the ones recognising the need for change.” So much so that the members are working closely with Nine to develop a Pride Action Plan as part of its DEI strategy.

A powerful voice at the table

The Community has established itself as a potent advocate for LGBTQIA+ individuals, ensuring their voices resonate all the way to the leadership level. As Alexander highlights, “Purely existing within this organisation allows us to make sure we have lines of communication right to the top when we feel there’s something that’s not right.” This foundational presence enables direct engagement in decision-making processes. “The more we’re heard, the more we’re active and the more people will consider the needs of LGBTQIA+ people when they’re making decisions.” 

This proactive approach has already yielded significant success, such as the impactful 9Now and Stan queer genre sections. Imran explains that what started as an internal conversation at a group meeting to collate content naturally evolved into a powerful external win: curating and promoting queer content in one easily accessible location on both streaming platforms, which Imran describes as “a huge win” for the Community, and for all LGBTQIA+ people that access the streaming platforms. 

Looking ahead

Looking to the future, the aspirations for the Community are clear and ambitious. One of the primary objectives is to establish a dedicated Pride Action Plan, aligning it with other key diversity and inclusion initiatives endorsed by the Nine board. In conjunction with the plan will be Nine’s allyship and awareness training, ensuring everyone at Nine, regardless of their identity, can contribute to helping eliminate discrimination.

“Another big ambition is to participate in the Australian Workplace Equality Index  (AWEI) which will assess Nine as a great place for LGBTQIA+ people to work. The AWEI gives us external context, and enables us to make comparisons with other organisations. It’s about taking the work we’re doing internally and externalising it even more so now,” explains Imran.

Nine is dedicated to fostering greater LGTBQIA+ inclusion. While there’s still progress to be made, the  passion and commitment from our Pride Community—and all of our communities—are driving meaningful change.