by Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

It’s an uncomfortable fact, but many professional women’s organizations began as a result of the exclusion and in some cases, blatant sexism, experienced by women in the workplace during the 1960’s and 70’s. The Boston Club, an organization of over 600 Boston-area women devoted to promoting the personal and professional development of their peers, has a similar story to tell.

Though not one of its founding member’s, Boston Club President Kathleen Stone, understands the progress women have made over the years. Growing up in a small, suburban neighborhood, this lawyer didn’t know a single woman who worked outside the home and, even during her college years, it wasn’t uncommon for female classmates to go through the trouble of getting a degree, only to do nothing with it. There finally came a time during the 70’s and 80’s when women were joining the upper ranks of companies both large and small, only to find that they were intentionally being excluded by their male co-workers. “Essentially, The Boston Club started in 1976 because a female vice president couldn’t find anyone to have lunch with. Male executives would go out together in large groups at private lunch clubs and they wouldn’t include her. She finally met four other female executives to eat with and before you know it, a weekly luncheon turned into an organization for women working professionals who wanted to advance their female peers,” Stone said.

The Boston Club is quite rare in the way that its members come from a multitude of professional backgrounds, including business executives, entrepreneurs, political leaders, physicians, artists, construction engineers, professors, restaurateurs, and lawyers- just to name a few. As Stone pointed out, there are women in every industry in existence and they comprise over 50 percent of the population, yet they continue to be underrepresented in the upper levels of corporations. “The idea behind our organization is very basic: women should promote opportunities for other women at upper levels if and when they can,” Stone said. “We have been surveying our members for eight years and though little advancements have been made, there has been nothing in the way of major progress. There are still many companies in Massachusetts who have no women on their corporate boards.”

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Two years ago, the new President of the Asia Pacific division of Baxter International, a company which develops and manufactures healthcare products, set a lofty goal: to achieve a 50/50 gender balance across management-level and critical positions throughout the 14 countries in the region (Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam).

In 2005, Gerald Lema took over as President of Baxter in Asia Pacific. As part of the consolidation process, he put into place a “culture of respect for individuals and their contributions by emphasizing high performance standards, knowledge transfer, continual learning, innovation and the role of gender balance in supporting innovation.” Lema and the Asia Pacific Leadership Team he formed, developed a cutting edge program designed to develop a more effective, diverse and sustainable organization through talent acquisition, leadership development, and development of technical abilities. That program – Building Talent Edge – was recognized this year by Catalyst for the extraordinary results it achieved.

To ensure a 50/50 gender balance in talent acquired, Baxter requires that candidate slates, whether provided by internal or external sources, be 50% women. To ensure that the women within Baxter are provided with the leadership, technical and functional training to enable them to advance, women are chosen to participate in development and leadership programs within the company in the 50/50 ratio. Finally, to facilitate the advancement of women within the organization, leaders share succession plans which must be comprised of slates of individuals that reflect a 50/50 gender balance. Also, there is an increased focus on internal promotions, with the number increasing form 34% in 2005 to 48% in 2008.

And the results really are staggering. In China, the percentage of women on the executive team jumped from 44% in 2006 to 85% in 2008. In Corporate Japan, an environment traditionally unreceptive to gender diversity in leadership, even saw some improvement in the percentage of women on its executive team– increasing from 17% to 33%. There was a significant increase of the percentage of women in all levels of management across the region – from 28 % to 48% of women for the director level or above.

The most important thing is the buy in from senior management and the creation of quantifiable goals said Victoria Elegant, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Pharmacovigilance at Baxter Asia Pacific at a corporate culture panel at the Catalyst event in March. “[The Initiative] comes directly from Gerald. It comes at the country level, by creating diversity teams as well. It is very important that we are not just saying things – that we are actually doing what we say.”

She continued, “You want to have a clear plan. If you don’t, you’ll fail. We’ve seen programs that have failed and, for the most part, it was because there was not a strategic plan on the way in. [You need to be clear about] what exactly the initiative is intended to do. [You need to be] need to be able to communicate to your senior management. It is important to make the business case for diversity inclusion and explain it to people that may or may not be interested in what you have to say. If you don’t have buy in, it will just be “talk” and not “walk.”