Womens Forum Day 2 - the noon mens corner session
October 12, 2007 by Chris | permalink
‘Why Women Mean Business’
Opened by one fo the two authors of the book with the title of the session. Why do half the market; 80% of all consumer products purchases decisions; a fundamental economic clout; over half the talent in universities; 60% of graduates in Europe are female.
Why do we see so few women in leadership positions?
Companies are much better at attracting females, but cannot hold onto them. Every gender initiative that they know is about teaching them how to behave more like men, rather than to create new ways of working. this is a really interesting issue. how can the structures of business change to be more gender neutral? is this perhaps an issue which can be best obdserved by goig to Finland or Copenhagen where i believe that gender neutrality is more the way.
Philippe Lagayette, [JP MORGAN] commented on the difference between views in the public sector and the private sector to parity for women. In the public sector, there are more general programs, the private can have very specific program. he also noted that his board had strong gender representation [a quick run to the internet showed that they have 2 of 30 which does not seem very strong to me]. he talked alot abot how great their programs are, but not about the failings.
Jean-Michel Donner, CEO, Lenovo, spoke about KPIs at both his former firm [IBM] and at Lenovo. he was almost impossible to hear, so i can't really say much more about what he had to say. he indicated that the majority of their programs were focused on the Chinese side, not the rest of the world.
the facilitator suggested that one way to enhance gender parity would be to have bonuses dependent upon gender/diversity improvements. this would not mean much for our company as our bonuses are not based on individual performance.
this whole thing is soooo Franco focused.
