At an early stage in her career, Carole Berndt, winner of the 2011 Women in Banking and Finance’s Award for Achievement, stood on a mountain in Hong Kong and was asked to quote on the risk element of turning the side of the mountain into an airport. She duly quoted, the site was purchased and developed and is now Hong Kong’s Chep Lak Kok international airport – a story which reflects Berndt’s geographically diverse career, first in insurance and now in banking.
Read the rest of the story here.
The scond article in my series on how UK business is approaching the issue of women on boards is now available to read via theglasshammer.com.
According to a recent survey by executive recruiters Harvey Nash, 81% of women feel that bias in the appointment process has a major impact on female representation – but two-thirds (64%) do not support legal quotas.
Instead, respondents cited education and awareness as the single biggest opportunity for improving boardroom balance (44%), followed by published targets and regular reporting (40%). Eighty-four percent of women believe they personally need to do more to achieve a higher representation on the board.
It appears from the survey, conducted of 365 male and female board level and senior executives, that the majority of women in business want to be taken seriously for their expertise and not simply be viewed as having “won” a place on the board through a mandated quota, an observation with which Charlotte Sweeney, Head of Diversity & Inclusion, EMEA at Nomura PLC agreed. She said, “Women want to be appointed into roles because they are the best person for the role, not because they are a woman.”
Read the rest of the article here.
Have you ever met or spoken to somebody who has achieved so much in their life that you’re lost for words? A few weeks ago I interviewed Stephanie Niven (top Oxbridge graduate, former star at Goldman Sachs, hand-picked to go with her boss to set up a new investment firm, winner of a Women in Banking and Finance award – oh and she does triathlons and competes in Iron (Wo)Man events too …) for a profile on The Glass Hammer.
In addition to being ferociously bright, she is also completely charming and was a joy to interview. What a great role model to other women.
… and she’s only 27.
Read my article here and prepare to be amazed …
Former lacrosse star and now a senior learning and development consultant with Accenture UK, Sarah Odell, who is also very active in her employer’s LGBT network, is the subject of my most recent article on theglasshammer.
“Her enthusiasm is infectious, as she describes Accenture’s networks as being “… very mature; there’s lots of excitement around the LGBT network and we’re now trying to raise awareness by launching a “Straight Allies” programme. This provides sponsors within each function who serve as ambassadors and mentors for LGBT issues, cascading information on policies and serving as a bridge between the straight and the LGBT communities. The programme’s strap line is “I can’t be out but I’m in” and we hope to make it a global programme over time. We launch later this month at an event with Stonewall.”
Read the full article here.
The first of my three articles on LGBT issues for theglasshammer.com has now been published:
As part of this year’s celebrations of Gay Pride, The Glass Hammer decided to take a look at Sexuality in the City (of London) and ask – how are London’s big companies and financial institutions approaching the LGBT agenda and what do best practices look like in 2011? Are networks making a difference, is it any easier to be out at work than it once was and what does “success” look like if you’re building an integrated and inclusive workplace? Read more …
My article about the possible introduction of gender quotas in the EU has now been published on TheGlasshammer.com - click here to read it in full.
(c) emberin
Earlier this summer, I wrote and edited a white paper for emberin, around the significance of teaming with men for success and how getting the opposite sex on board with gender diversity and change programmes was the only real way to make progress.
To support their work, emberin undertook a survey of male Australian business leaders and asked them some tough questions about their attitudes, behaviours and views on gender diversity.
Here’s an extract from the paper’s Executive Summary:
Earlier this year, the New York Times published an article entitled The Feminism of the Future Relies on Men. The author argued that twenty-first century programs focused on increasing gender diversity will only succeed if the men in the company are on-board with the idea in ideological terms and also support it in practical ways, suggesting that:
“The feminism of the future is shaping up to be about pulling men into women’s universe — as involved dads, equal partners at home and ambassadors for gender equality from the cabinet office to the boardroom.”
Gender diversity is now no longer about women smashing the glass ceiling and forcing their way into the men’s world; instead, it’s time to reverse twentieth century thinking and ask: what do the men want, think and feel about gender diversity? And if men listen to other men – how can we help to change the way in which they think and speak when it comes to levelling the playing field?
emberin, as Australia’s leading gender diversity consultancy, is already very aware of this school of thought and has undertaken pioneering, award-winning work to support the concept that we call Mostly Men. We know, via our qualitative research and our feedback from emberin programs such as my mentor – mastering gender leadership, that getting the guys on board and creating great male role models for other men (men who leave the office on time, men who promote and support women, men who convert their male colleagues to these behaviours) can make a real difference in Australian corporate life.
In 2008 emberin conducted the first Australian piece of qualitative research on the view of senior men who were champions of gender diversity. In conjunction with Telstra we then created a program for men. In the last two years almost 2000 men have completed that program and we have received significant feedback from them as individuals.
This report shares our findings with you and forms a pioneering piece of research on the current state of men in business in Australia today.
(c) emberin 2010
* * * * * * * * *
For more on this line of thought, click here to read an excellent article on theGlasshammer.com in which they pose the question:
“Would you want your daughter to work here?”
- and then go on to suggest that, for men in the corporate world, answering “no” to that question has to mean that they need to be part of the solution. A senior partner from Deloitte US continues with her belief that considering the question helps senior men see the work environment and culture from a very different and personal perspective.
“I haven’t got time for networking”, one senior woman from a major City of London investment bank told me recently.
“All that standing around in rooms full of complete strangers, drinking either bad wine at the end of a long day, or bad coffee and stale croissants at the start of another day – no thanks. It’s so unstructured and unfocused, and such a bad use of my time. I’m sure there probably ARE useful and interesting people at some of these events – but how on earth do you find them in a packed room, and what use might we be to each other?”
Other women told a similar tale, with one commenting that she had now stopped going along to organised “group meet ups”, as she found that she either knew no-one, or would see a familiar face in the crowd and then “cling to that person for the whole evening, thus negating the idea of meeting new people!”
In response to this changing mindset – and independently of each other – two London based women have begun to evolve a more nuanced, “networking 2.0” framework, which delivers the benefits of what we might perhaps call “old school” networking – expanding your contacts, sharing connections and skills – but which also uses technology and social media interfaces.
Just received a commission from The Glass Hammer to write a piece examining the implications of the recent news story announcing that the EU is planning to introduce quotas forcing companies to fill at least a fifth of their top jobs with women if the private sector does not increase female representation in the boardroom over the next year.
Working mums as role models
2 SepOne woman wrote to me to say:
“My daughter has just been diagnosed [with] ADHD. As a working mother you think ‘maybe if I had stayed at home she would be ok’. (I know it’s silly). So the article means a lot to me – thank you.”
Tags: Articles, children, parenting, theglasshammer, Women, workplace