iStock_000003858560XSmallBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is managed by men. While Chancellor Angela Merkel has packed her cabinet with a good gender balance, that isn’t reflected in German businesses. And many people think it should be.

Recently German politicians have been debating targets for the number of women on supervisory and executive boards. They are aiming for 30% representation by 2018. That’s 10% below the target that Norway set in 2003, but a lot higher than the current board representation figures.

“Germany is recognized as a laggard in terms of public policy focused on helping women in the workplace,” says Véronique Bourez, in the report Women on Boards: Moving Beyond Tokenism [PDF]. “The number of women in senior levels in business is certainly one of the lowest in Europe.”

According to FIDAR, a German women’s association which aims to promote a sustainable increase in the proportion of women on the supervisory boards of German companies, only about 12% of the directorships of large German companies are women. However, most of those are labour union representatives. If you look at the female shareholder representatives on boards the number drops to a measly 4.5%.

Read more

Leader with team in backgroundBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Recently Business and Professional Women’s Foundation launched a project to build a framework through which to view the choices Gen X and Gen Y women make in the workplace – the Young Careerist Project. And last week, BPW Foundation released the results of its focus groups on Gen Y women specifically.

Dr. Sheila Barry-Oliver, BPW Foundation Board of Trustees and Research & Education Committee Chair, explained why this research is important. She said, “Women represent 46% of the Generation Y workforce, which by 2025 will represent 42% of the US workforce. Given the size of this segment of the future workforce, it is critical that employers understand the career choices and challenges of Generation Y women, which are different from prior generations. With this insight, employers can adjust their policies as necessary to ensure the pipeline of talented women remains robust and thus maximize the contribution of Gen Y women to the US economy.”

She continued, “We believe that our initial qualitative research provides some insight but we are following up with a detailed online survey to gain greater insight.”

Young Careerist Project research consultant Kara Nichols Barrett explained, “We asked ‘how does Gen Y define work and work/life balance, perceive intergenerational workplace dynamics, and experience gender in the workplace.’”

Nichols Barrett continued, “I would describe Gen Y women as anxious super-women. We’ve been told all along that we can do anything, and yet we recognize that there are limits, and the workplace is still different for men and women.”

As these women begin to take on more responsibilities in the workforce, the information revealed by the Young Careerist focus groups can provide valuable advice for managing, mentoring, and developing them into effective leaders.

Read more

iStock_000003583699XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

A new study by McKinsey has shattered the notion that women aren’t rising to the top in significant numbers because they don’t want to be leaders.

In fact, the report showed, women in middle management very much want to reach senior executive levels – even moreso than women in entry level corporate jobs. The study, “Unlocking the full potential of Women in the US Economy” showed that while 79% of women in entry level roles agreed or strongly agreed that they “desire[d] to move to the next level,” 83% of women in the middle management said the same.

While the report does discuss the fact that some women make lifestyle choices that keep them from attaining the highest ranks in their companies, it points out that this number of women is not sufficient to account for the significant lack of women in senior executive roles.

What the study does reveal, however, is that unconscious bias is hard at work – that managers (both male and female) have hidden beliefs about what a leader should look like. Thoughts about who should occupy a leadership position are keeping women down and pushing women out.

On the other hand, numbers don’t lie. Employing an earnest and transparent metrics-based method of culture change can reveal bias where it was hidden before. As Saadia Zahidi, Director, Head of Constituents, World Economic Forum, said at the Wall Street Journal’s recent Women in the Economy Conference, “You can look at it as naming and shaming, but it works.”

Read more

iStock_000003734256XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

With Earth Day around the corner, The Glass Hammer has decided to take a look into why sustainability makes sense from a business standpoint. We’ve long pointed out that companies must take a broader look at the gender composition of their workforce and senior leadership if they are to maintain a sustainable and profitable future. Today, we’re examining why a fresh look at investment in sustainability can spur innovation and growth.

Erika Karp, Head of Global Sector Research at UBS, said that she feels strongly that sustainability investing needs to be “completely integrated into the investment process – the decision-making matrix which drives stock recommendations.”

Karp said, “We’re talking about a paradigm shift here.”

She continued, “Good long-term investing starts with great questions. What we can do through great questions is make sure we are covering the material areas of inquiry that haven’t been pursued as they should be from the standpoint of risk adjusted return.”

What a mouthful! But, Karp explained, considering sustainability issues around environmental, social, and governance matters can only improve the investment process. She said, “If we are doing our best in investment bank research, we must do our best to pursue all areas of inquiry.” Considering so-called non-financial (or extra-financial) information when making decisions about investments is just a smart way to do business.

Read more

iStock_000006074898XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

This month the Financial News released the results of its fourth annual survey of women in the financial services. One of the most surprising findings was that 90% of the women surveyed want banks to be required by the government to provide greater transparency on compensation data.

The research, which surveyed 200 of the most senior leaders at twenty investment banks and corporate and investment banking divisions, showed that women represent only 8% of leaders in the industry.

The fact that almost all of them named compensation transparency as a policy of key importance is revealing. Even the most senior women in the financial services feel the wage gap is a hindrance to recruiting and retaining the best and brightest female employees – that is, half of the best potential workforce.

But based on the research, compensation isn’t the only area where transparency could be useful. Shining some sunlight in other areas of the workplace could benefit both women and the firms that need to employ them.

Read more

BarbaraWaltersBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last Friday, in celebration of International Women’s Day, Accenture hosted an event at the Paley Center for Media in New York to honor one of the world’s most recognizable women, Barbara Walters. Pat Mitchell, CEO of the Paley Center, said, “She, in many ways, defines the collective media memory of our most important television experiences.”

She explained that Walters had defined our times, covering the people, places, and events that matter.

The conversation between Mitchell and Walters was broadcast on the web to thousands of Accenture women around the globe, and covered Walters’ memories of her early days on television (for example, being asked to masquerade in a Playboy Bunny costume for the camera – as a journalist!) to ultimately becoming the first female co-anchor of network evening news, producing her own television show, and being the only journalist to have interviewed every president since Nixon.

Inspiringly, Walters said, “Every once in a while you are able to do something that you feel might make a difference.”

Read more

Nicki HeadshotBy Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer

“There isn’t a glass ceiling, just a thick layer of men” quipped the ever sharp Laura Liswood last week, and this is my favorite description to date of what is preventing women from advancing to executive management and the boardroom.

Others talk about the sticky floor or the marzipan layer preventing women from getting to the top. In the run up to the 100th International women’s day, themed “Equal Access to Education, Training and Science and Technology: Pathway to Decent Work for Women,” the discussion turns to creating a more robust pipeline of female leaders as the statistics don’t show great progress overall – as The White House Project reports, only about 16-18% of leadership roles in almost any industry are held by women. Yet women have long outpaced men in education (with almost 60% of college graduates now female), and capable, highly trained young women are flooding into the workforce.

Some companies are incredibly advanced in their gender work because they take it seriously. They understand, from both a human capital and a consumer perspective, that women are the next big business opportunity. Building stronger, more effective companies means developing and utilizing all of the talent available.

Read more

iStock_000010363335XSmallBy Stephanie Wilcox (Middlefield, CT)

Why is there such a paucity of female traders on Wall Street? Why are they difficult to find? Why don’t they apply for hedge fund jobs? Renée Haugerud, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Principal of Galtere Ltd., asked these questions when she discovered the difficulties of hiring female traders.

Though the hedge fund industry is a $2.5 trillion industry, a mere three percent of the assets are managed by women, according to Lauren Templeton, hedge fund manager and founder and principal of Lauren Templeton Capital Management and Maximum Pessimism, LLC. Wall Street is predominantly led by men, but what would happen if there was a better balance of men and women on Wall Street?

Haugerud thinks it would make a better Wall Street. “We need more balanced and more diversified trading desks,” she said. “Only a diversified portfolio management team will produce truly diversified portfolios. When I try to hire women I have a difficult time finding them. I have to actively search. A trading desk should represent all nationalities, ethnicities and maintain a gender balance as well.”

That’s why Haugerud, founder and chief investment officer of the commodities-focused asset management firm Galtere Ltd. donated $1.5 million to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) to establish a new program with an initiative on trading from a female perspective. The program, Finance for the Future, focuses on female investment bankers and exposes all attendees to what Haugerud refers to as the female/right side of the brain of the trading business.

Read more

iStock_000005966600XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

A little more than two years ago, The Executive Leadership Council Institute for Leadership Development & Research published the findings of its Black Women’s Research Initiative [PDF]. Executive Director Ancella Livers, Ph.D., explained, “Some of our female members noticed the numbers of black women in executive roles seemed to be fairly small. They wanted to know why.”

“We really wanted to be able to understand what’s going on, and to give some of our younger women markers on a pathway.” She continued, “Younger women have the intelligence and the skills, but not the access to the experiences of the women who went before them to guide the way.”

Unfortunately, according to Dr. Livers, in the years since the research was published, there has not been much change regarding the number of Black women in senior roles, or in the pipeline. And while she noted the importance of Ursula Burns as the CEO of Xerox, Dr. Livers said, in general, many black women perceived a lack of role models, as part of the reason why. Others suggest that black women lack strength in their strategic relationships with those in power, as another reason.

This week and throughout the month of February, The Glass Hammer will highlight some of those Black women who have achieved a high level of success in the corporate environment, who can serve as role models for the women climbing the ladder behind them.

Read more

Beautiful business woman with colleagues in line at the backBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Gender equality needs to be a strategic priority for organizations. It demands all of the rigor companies usually display when pursuing business-critical objectives and the full commitment of top leadership,” said Aniela Unguresan, co-founder (along with Nicole Schwab) of The Gender Equality Project, a new benchmarking and certification initiative backed by the World Economic Forum and several multinational corporations.

According to Unguresan, the goal of The Gender Equality Project is to enable the world’s largest firms to, both quantitatively and qualitatively, measure progress toward gender equality. What makes The Gender Equality Project stand out, she explained, is that it enables participating firms not only to measure their own progress, but also to accelerate the pace of change by implementing a standardized assessment methodology that can be applied across different industries and regions. This assessment methodology will serve as a basis for the first global certification system in gender equality.

“It’s our experience within the corporate environment that what gets measured gets done,” she explained. By measuring and comparing their progress toward defined goals, just like any other strategic initiative, companies can begin to make headway in the global problem of gender inequality in the workplace. After the launch of its assessment methodology, The Gender Equality project will make available a self-assessment tool and will put in place a global certification system– a veritable stamp of approval for gender equality.

Read more