Womens Forum Day 2 -evening mens corner session
October 12, 2007 by Chris | permalink
I think that the session needs to renamed to MEN CORNERED. There were so many individuals who wanted to attend that the session was moved to a break-out room that was fille do t standing-room only capacity. The moderator opened with the two important questions….
Why is it important to improve on the gender diversity front?
Why is this not a gender issue, but a business issue?
The facts of the panel:
Carlos Ghosen, CEO Renault – 18 board of directors – 2 female
Group executive made up of 7, 0 female
Management Committee – 25 members, 3 female
Nissan – 22 on the board with none are women.
Frank Brown, Dean, INSEAD - 132 resident faculty – can’t find number of women.
Jean-Pascal Tricoire, CEO Schneider Electric – 15 board members – 1 woman [Director HR]
JPT started with a description of some of their initiatives of the past three to five
years.
CG – it is not just a question of being convinced that gender parity is a good thing, it is a question of the business case. One must combine both values and business cases. He talked about the time when he went to Nissan when it is was in trouble. He turned to those who did not have a voice since those who had the voice had failed; this was the younger members of staff and the females.
FB – at INSEAD we now have 28% of the MBA students are female and it is improvement.
JPT – we start with the recruitment by helping specifically female recruits to succeed throughout the program. They also look to ensure economic parity after maternity leave.
CG – we have very specific targets that we put forward. We try to get a good balance between targets and capabilities. It is really important to make sure that those who are promoted are supported thru their progression. To make sure that each move is really one forward that sticks, not one forward and half back. We find that there are plenty of women who put themselves forward. The people who have talent who have never had the coaching nor mentoring are those who are slipping thru. Even though we only have 0 members on the board of Nissan, my job is to prepare others to be able to move into the board position.
FB – I find that male dominated business tend not to put women from within the firm forward for Board positions. It is really important that there is a road of preparation.
CG - the most important thing for me is that my children consider me a good father, not the CEO of Renault/Nissan.
It was another interesting session. There was a vey high interest by the participants.
