Women Leaders Rising — Stories and Stats from the 2010 Global Best Practices Session
Increasingly, women are shattering the glass ceiling–and they’re doing so in savvy businesses who actively support gender diversity in leadership. While moderating Diversity Best Practices’ 2010 Global Best Practice Session in February 2010, I was struck by these stats:
- At Verizon, 29% of the top 300 leaders are women.
- At Sodexo, women hold 19% of the top 300 positions. Their goal: 24% within the next few years.
- At Ernst & Young, the number of women in titled leadership positions has grown to nearly 20%.
To be sure we still have a very long way to go in many companies to see women represented according to their availability in the talent pool and according to the talent, education, and experiences they have. But here, let’s just take a moment to reflect on the gains above, which can be added to what presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling when referring to the votes she got. Not long ago, gains such as these were just pipe dreams. And they still might just be that if executives were not becoming more and more convinced that making leadership gender inclusive makes businesses stronger.
The 2010 Global Best Practice Session hosted by The New York Times focused on gender and corporate social responsibility, and business leaders were there to explain how corporations are helping more of their most talented women step up. Ernst & Young, for example, is involving men in women’s initiatives, training them to become better coaches for women developing their own leadership styles. And Sodexo ties 25% of executive bonuses to achieving diversity goals around gender representation. It make sense: according to Global Chief Diversity Officer Rohini Anand, every $1 Sodexo invests in mentoring sees a return of $19. Though their approaches differ, these companies all see gender diversity in leadership as vital to strengthening their executive talent pool. Said Sodexo CEO Michel Landel:
“We set goals for every business objective. Gender diversity is no different.”
In The Inclusion Paradox, I offer more stories of how gender diversity all along the corporate ladder has made businesses better able to cope with increasingly diverse client bases. What is your company doing to help women enter top positions of leadership?
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