Why Women Mean Business

On January 30, 2008, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) hosted a launch party for the new book Why Women Mean Business: Understanding the Emergence of our Next Economic Revolution by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland. The event took place at PwC’s offices at Embankment Place in London, where over 100 guests were invited to attend at talk by the authors. The event was sponsored by PwC’s Gender Advisory Council, which advises the Global CEO on gender issues, particularly retention and development of women and support of leadership initiatives.

Those concerned with diversity and gender issues in the business arena greeted this book with great fanfare, the book takes a new approach to these issues. Beyond “preaching to the converted,” this book seeks to bring the teachings of diversity and inclusion training to a wider audience in an understandable and accessible way.

The book goes several steps further than doling out the usual “case for diversity” plea. Instead, the book highlights WHY companies that embrace diversity and are sensitive to gender issues will become all-round employers of choice, as well as more effective marketers for this new century. It gives a lucid step-by-step guide for managers on how to create growth by valuing the input of both women and men in the workplace, explains why many current approaches to hiring more women haven’t worked well, and offers a new perspective.

PwC’s Gender Agenda Blog, developed under the leadership of Gender Advisory Council Program Manager Cleo Thompson, also covered the event. According Ms. Thompson’s blog, the authors covered three main themes in their presentation. First, they emphasized that women make up most of the talent pool and most of the marketplace. Second, they cited studies by McKinsey and Catalyst indicating that gender balance is crucial to the strong performance of an organization. Finally, they offered the advice – “stop trying to fix women” – meaning instead of trying to get women to act more like men, fix the organization so that it is able to more fully utilize the talents and skills of both genders.

Of particular interest in the book are the comparisons of gender policies and approaches at companies around the world. Some of the results of which are very surprising indeed. Add to that the views of successful business leaders on the gender issue, and you have a book that is certain to appeal to a broad audience and revolutionize the way that employers think about diversity and gender issues in the workplace.

Stefan Stern of the Financial Times led a panel discussion about challenges of dealing with gender issues and the global economic implications of the gender gap. Panelists Paul Cleal of PwC UK, Kevin Daly, Chief Economist of Goldman Sachs and Professor Soumittra Dutta of INSEAD discussed examples from their own organizations and took questions from the audience on the theme of the global impact of cultural differences.

If the enthusiastic response of the audience at this event was any indication, the book should be quite a success. Many women waited around after the event to have the authors autograph their copies of the book.

Due to launch in the US in the first week of April, Why Women Mean Business promises that “the optimization of women’s talents will boost business performance. Taking action to achieve this will require sustained courage and commitment from today’s corporate leaders. This is an opportunity not to be missed.” And it finishes with the glorious line: “It is time for CEOs to get serious about sex.” We’re sold.