By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Our CEO challenged his team to increase diversity – to come up with plans to accelerate the development of female talent,” said Brannigan Thompson, Head of HR for ING US Insurance. “We needed to not just say that we are a diverse company, but to act like a diverse company.”

Rhonda Mims, President of the ING Foundation and Senior Vice President, Office of Corporate Responsibility and Multicultural Affairs for ING added, “Finding creative ways to be ahead of the curve with employee engagement and professional development is really relevant to building a successful company. It’s more than writing a check – it’s about collaborating to deliver on a brand promise.”

Coming out of the recession, Thompson said, ING was “reexamining how we looked at leadership and reexamining how we do business. It was the perfect storm.”

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By Kate McClaskey (New York City)

In a time when companies are rebuilding their business models to include a more diverse workforce, financial corporations are paying attention. Black Enterprise magazine recently released its list of the best companies for diversity, a list which consists of companies that the magazine believes have achieved a high level of inclusion of minority individuals – including race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. The Best Companies for Diversity list was made through surveys of the top 1,000 publicly traded companies, focusing on technology, sales, marketing, and human resources. Below is a roundup of BE’s five top financial companies in diversity.

Northern Trust

Named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers and one of the top 50 Companies for Executive Women, the Chicago based financial company boasts not only an annual Chairman’s Diversity Advocate Award Program which recognizes employees who make contributions to diversity efforts, but Diversity of Work training to encourage work groups to value their people and their contributions.

Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion Mark David Welch promises progressiveness and training with the support of diversity councils. “Northern Trust has long recognized the invaluable role of diversity, and this recognition is a testament to our belief that fostering a globally diverse and inclusive workforce is fundamental to our success as a business enterprise and community advocate.”

The company also gives priority to programs in diverse neighborhoods while offering a broad variety of business groups including Women in Leadership, the TNTPride (LGBT) Community, and the Black Business Resource Council. All combined, this makes Northern Trust an inclusive culture that enables the company to hire and retain a diverse workforce – which Welch says leads to better ideas and innovations and brings out the best in our employees.

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By Cleo Thompson (London), Founder of The Gender Blog

“It’s time to get serious about sex”, declared Avivah Wittenberg-Cox in 2008, at the NYC launch of her book, Why Women Mean Business. Co-authored with Financial Times contributor Alison Maitland, the book took the economic arguments for gender change to the heart of the corporate world and spelled out in no uncertain terms that gender diversity is an economic necessity and is good for women, men, companies and their clients.

Two years later, we’re in a very different, credit-crunched corporate world and Wittenberg-Cox is back with the sequel: How Women Mean Business, subtitled – “A step by step guide to profiting from gender balanced business”. The book was launched last week at a London event hosted by Nomura, where the author guided her audience of both men and women through a frank and witty multimedia presentation of the issues covered in her new offering.

“The twentieth century is over. The reality of the world has changed. The last century was driven by manufacturing and the twenty-first century is wrapped up in customer services and technology”, explained Wittenberg-Cox.

“And gender balance has a huge role to play in this transformation.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

This week, The Glass Hammer is celebrating women in technology with a series of articles profiling women who’ve broken the glass ceiling in senior technical roles. The tech field hasn’t always been seen as women-friendly. For instance, as noted in the Anita Borg Institute‘s report Senior Technical Women: A Profile of Success, the field’s culture promotes a hero-mentality, wherein the people given top jobs, promotions, and kudos are those who swoop in at the last minute when a project needs to be completed, spend long days and late nights fixing problems to meet a deadline, and save the day.

The hero culture doesn’t work well for women, though. As the study explains, most senior women in tech are primary caregivers who often aren’t able to spend those late nights in the office – and so they get passed over for promotions or interesting assignments, even if they’re highly capable.

Another study published in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that geeky stereotypes may be keeping women out of computer-science related fields.

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“If gender diversity, cultural and economic diversity is so important to cultural change, then why is there such a paucity of women and women of color in leadership?” asked Linda Basch, President of the National Council for Research on Women.

Basch, speaking at yesterday’s opening panel for the NCRW’s 2010 Corporate Leadership Summit, The Challenge and the Charge: Strategies for Retaining and Advancing Women of Color, continued with a set of statistics revealing the lack of women of color in leadership positions across corporate, non-profit, government, science, and research arenas. “In the second decade of the 21st century, don’t we all find these numbers unacceptable?”

Basch explained that the tide is beginning to turn – that diversity in corporate leadership is beginning to be recognized as a key to success. “We need to harness this moment.” She continued, “This is a time when those with bold dreams can animate bold dreams in all of us.”

The panel, moderated by CNN Anchor Soledad O’Brien, featured Glenda McNeal, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Global Client Group, Merchant Services Americas, American Express, Aynesh Johnson, Managing Director and Global Head of the Office of Global Leadership and Diversity, Goldman Sachs, Joyce Chang, Managing Director and Global Head of Emerging Markets Strategy and Credit Research, JPMorgan, Nellie Borrero, Global Human Capital and Diversity Lead, Accenture, and Carla Harris, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley Investment Management. The women discussed challenges faced by women of color in the corporate arena, and strategies for success.

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