Forumblog.org - The World Economic Forum Blog: The Gender Agenda: Putting Parity into Practice

Two teams. One challenge. How can business put gender parity into practice?

The session was a CNBC debate that had its audience engaged and on edge. Presenter Ross Westgate started by laying out the fact that only 2% of Fortune 500 companies have a woman in charge, and if parity equals profits, where are the women?

Team One led by Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP, Carlos Ghosn of Renault-Nissan Alliance and Orit Gadiesh, Chairman of Bain & Co, made the case for gender parity.

“Equality in the workplace makes good business sense,” Sorrell said. Ghosn explained the three steps all business leadership should take to make this a reality: “We need to explain why promoting gender diversity is good for business. We need to lead by example. And we need to entrench parity in the basic processes of hiring, appraisal and succession planning.” Gadiesh summed up by saying that gender parity has to be a strategic priority.

Team Two led by Arianna Huffington of Huffington Post, Muhtar Kent of Coca-Cola and Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, laid out some practical policies.

These included changing company culture. “Right now there’s so much stress to succeed that women are driven away from it. Women have internalised many stereotypes so they’re reluctant to be assertive and express ambition. We also have to educate women that there’s no success without failure and how to confront fears,” said Huffington.

Kent said 70% of Coke purchasers are women and companies need women employed to understand how best to serve their growing female customers. Change some of the processes that are more rigid, and help women especially with the issue of mobility.

The studio audience voted on their presentations and Team Two came up trumps. They then learned what the world thinks of the issue. In a special Facebook poll conducted for the session, participants learned that of 6,000 people polled, 80% of women and 63% of men don’t think gender parity in the workplace has been achieved.

Wrapping up the session was Saadia Zahidi, head of the World Economic Forum’s Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme. “Women make up one half of the world’s resources, and it is imperative for healthy, prosperous and fair societies to engage them equally. And to do this I have three words: implementation, implementation, implementation,” Zahidi concluded.