The Consumer Electronics Show won’t have any female keynote speakers this year after weeks of attempting to add some diversity to the lineup, according to a report from Fast Company. All six top positions will instead be filled by male CEOs: Intel’s Brian Krzanich, Ford’s Jim Hackett, Huawei’s Richard Yu, Turner’s John Martin, Hulu’s Randy Freer, and the Consumer Technology Association’s (CTA) Gary Shapiro.

The news is a blow to attendees of the show looking to be inspired by and hear from female executives in tech, after the CTA, which runs the show, hinted it was trying to gather more female speakers at all levels. The show officially begins in five days, making it unlikely the CTA would be able to add to the lineup any further. The last time CES’s keynote lineup included women was in 2016 with the inclusion of General Motors CEO Marry Barra and IBM CEO Ginny Rometty. 2015 also saw an all-male lineup, while 2014 featured Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer.

Last month, when CES revealed that its lineup didn’t have any women in top keynote positions, where speakers get to address the entire conference, the CTA explained in a blog post. “As upsetting as it is, there is a limited pool when it comes to women in these positions. We feel your pain. It bothers us, too. The tech industry and every industry must do better.” It noted that there will be roughly around 275 female speakers this year at other events.

Still, the CTA faced public criticism, with marketing executives at major companies advocating for women they knew to be included. Twitter CMO Leslie Berland had tweeted, “Hey @CES. Big respect for what you’ve built. Please do better here. I’ve got a long list of amazing women to hit your stage. Let’s talk.” Twitter then announced a few days later that it would have an all-women lineup at CES in direct response to the all-male keynote lineup. JPMorgan Chase’s CMO Kristin Lemkau also compiled a list of 21 suggested candidates for the CTA.

Since the blog post in December, the CES keynote page currently looks a bit more diverse than before, after the CTA added photos of women speaking at its smaller events onto the page. Despite that mask, the keynote speaker lineup remains all-male.

Update January 7th, 8:28AM PT: After this article was published, the CTA has responded to the backlash by adding two female keynote panelists to this year’s lineup: Nancy Dubuc, president and chief executive officer A+E Networks, and Kristin Dolan, founder and CEO of 605. It also promises to “redouble” the efforts to add diversity to the keynote lineup in 2019.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/4/16849620/ces-2018-sexism-female-ceo-diversity-cta-all-male-lineup