Tag Archive for: featured

Spotlight on Asia

During the month of August, The Glass Hammer will be focusing on Asia, featuring profiles of senior level women who are showing up to challenge the gender gap in Asia with their own journeys to leadership.

Take a look at the following articles that take a wider look at the gender dynamics of business in Asia.

Via Shutterstock

Spotlight on Asia: Gender Diversity is Both Catching Up and Leading

When it comes to women representation in business leadership, Asia is at once behind and ahead. For all the societal factors holding women back, marketplace and cultural dynamics are also pulling women into leadership and the C-Suite.

Update: Spotlight on Asia – China and Singapore: Baby Steps Towards Improving Gender Diversity

The Opportunity is Great but the Journey may be Long
McKinsey’s June 2013 report, Women Matter: An Asia Perspective, noted, “women hold very few of the top jobs in Asia. On average, they hold 6% of the seats on corporate boards and 8% of those on executive committees. Moreover, although elements of a gender diversity program are in place in some Asian companies, the issue is not yet high on the strategic agenda of most.”

Update: Spotlight on Asia 2: Japan Continues to Lag in Diversity Rankings

For all of its years as a global economic power, cultural issues and possibly a protracted economic downturn have limited gender diversity in the Japanese workplace. Japan consistently falls near the bottom of the rankings for gender diversity in the workplace. Women hold 2% of board positions (GMI) and 9% of senior management roles (Grant Thorton) according to recent studies.

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Voice of Experience: Liesbeth Botha, Strategic Digital Transformation Leader at PwC Africa

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By Cathie Ericson

liesbeth

Bringing diversity to any team is an advantage for the entire business ecosystem, says PwC’s Liesbeth Botha. “You get a different perspective from unusual backgrounds and combinations of influences. It’s eye-opening for so many people and paves the way for them to be themselves.”

Academia and Consulting – A Perfect Career Blend 

“Interesting and diverse” are the two words that Botha uses to describe her career. A South African native, she earned her undergraduate degree in electrical and computer engineering and then her PhD at Carnegie Melon University, where she became a prolific publisher of research papers. Based on her publication record, she was sought after to become one of the youngest professors at Pretoria University in South Africa, where she spent 13 years.

She then joined the leadership of Stellenbosch University, a prominent university in South Africa where her portfolio was innovation and commercialization of intellectual property, establishing the policies for start-up companies at the university, as well as the digital transformation of the university. She started a unit that today is still an iconic representation of the university’s focus on innovation.

After six years at Stellenbosch University, she joined the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa’s national laboratory, leading the Materials Science and Manufacturing business unit as executive director. In that role she led a number of national technological innovation programs such as the 3D printing of titanium for structural aircraft parts, in partnership with leading global aircraft manufacturers.

Most recently, in 2014, she moved to PwC, first joining the tech consulting practice before landing in her current leadership role in digital transformation. Her first significant accomplishment there was rolling out the G Suite (Google for Work) platform across PwC in 17 countries in Africa, a significant milestone in their digital transformation journey. Next she’ll be spearheading adoption of several other platforms, including Oracle Cloud for finance and engagement management; Workday, a human capital management system; and a new CRM platform, Salesforce. “It is exciting to implement these cutting-edge solutions in the market as a leader in the larger global PwC network,” she says. “It puts a spotlight on us, but we are up for that challenge.”

Being a leader in digital tech is a priority because of the opportunities for disruption and transformation, not only for PwC as a professional services firm, but the implications for clients as machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) become a reality. She sees this as a particularly exciting time, since the theories around AI and pattern recognition have been developed since the ‘80s but couldn’t become a viable option until the proliferation of big data and cloud computing, which provided the data storage and power to allow companies to build and adopt real-world solutions.

As a woman in engineering, Botha says she wishes she had known about the many opportunities that a professional services firm could offer — global opportunities that span different industries and allow you the chance to see the world through totally different eyes than is the case for most people in engineering.

Embracing Her Position as a Role Model

“Having a lesbian woman in the highest position changes the perspective on everything, and I appreciate that I can be a role model for women, lesbians and anyone who’s different from the stereotypes people have in their heads,” Botha said.

“I don’t fit into any box as a woman engineer, with a PhD from one of the leading universities in the United States, then working in academia, moving to leadership positions, and finally joining a professional services firm. Since nothing ‘fits together,’ so to speak, it shows others that being different can give you an advantage.”

She finds that although the structural barriers that impeded women’s professional progress a couple of decades ago have been largely removed, practical barriers remain as women are still the primary caregivers if they have a family, making it difficult to achieve work-life balance.
And, she notes, the other barrier is psychological: Since women don’t have as many role models, they are less likely to form a vision of the person they aspire to be. She sees this changing as women speak out about their experiences, pointing to Margaret Thatcher as holding the type of position that women can now see themselves aiming toward.

Gender is a very defining factor, she says, and the puzzle is that we often don’t know what influences gender-specific behavior. She herself has tried to introspectively determine how she was able to achieve her level of success in a patriarchal society, but can’t point to specific areas where her parents said or did something that influenced her. “I think we still don’t have an idea of how to bring up a child to behave in a gender-neutral manner, so you just do your best as a parent,” she says.

She advises young women not to limit their experiences, but to tackle anything that comes their way. “Just because there are no women in a certain kind of role doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” she says. “Set yourself up for anything that interests you.” She notes that she conquered her various career steps because she believed anything was possible, and that’s the type of approach that women should have.

“Try something, fail fast when you realize it isn’t working and try it another way.”

The Benefits of a Supportive Corporate Environment

As the sponsoring partner for PwC Africa’s LGBT “Be Yourself” network, Botha is proud of the difference it is making for younger people in the organization who weren’t yet comfortable being out at work.

She herself notes what a relief it was to come out to different groups of people, to sometimes experience their surprise and then mostly their acceptance. “It builds self-confidence and trust in the world when you see that, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised each time.”

She says this acceptance won’t happen by itself: Companies must have specific, defined programs with targets because it provides an aspirational goal. “You have to be specific about what you want to achieve,” she says, adding that companies need to be careful not to fall into complacency.

Botha and her wife have been married for 10 years — ever since gay marriage became legal in South Africa –and have two children, a boy and a girl. “Being a parent is one of the most amazing experiences; I never could have anticipated what joy it is,” she says.  And hard work. “I always understood work-life balance intellectually, but it is different when you are experiencing it,” she says.

The family loves traveling, especially adventure travel in their SUV. Botha also rides an on-off-road BMW motorcycle and grabs the opportunity for a quick ride whenever she can.

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LGBTQ Rights: Why Companies are Leading the Charge

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 By Aimee Hansen

LGBTQ

image via Shutterstock

With civil liberties at risk, companies have become the unexpected heavy-hitting champions of LGBTQ rights.

During Pride Month, theglasshammer often focuses on advocating for equality within corporations, but companies are increasingly playing a powerful role in driving equality within broader society.

Companies are proving to be the most powerful adopters of LGBTQ rights, while defending those rights on a state and federal level.

This sets up an odd paradox when it comes to protecting the rights of LGBTQ workers: government leans out while companies lean in.

Government setbacks to LGBTQ protections

Denying LGBTQ rights remains as emotive fodder on the political table, when it comes to appealing to voters and appeasing constituents on the religious right.

While most voters overwhelmingly support a federal LGBT-non discrimination bill (protecting gender identity and sexual orientation), no federal law protects LGBTQ workers against discrimination. It’s legal in 28 states to fire an employee for being gay.

Summing up Trump’s first 100 days, NBC recently wrote, “when it comes to LGBTQ discourse, his impact has been as loud as an air raid siren.” Gender identity and sexual orientation references have been erased from White House and State Department websites, a national survey and the 2020 U.S. Census.

In late March, as Rolling Stone put it, “Trump Quietly Went After LGBT Workers” by revoking the Obama-era Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which required those companies doing business with the federal government to prove their compliance with federal laws and executive orders (such as the complementary order on LGBT protections, also signed in by Obama).

The repeal by the Trump administration displaced the burden of adherence from companies to LGBTQ people, creating a loophole around protections and conveying the message that the Trump government is indifferent to them.

A draft “license to discriminate” Trump executive order was leaked that induced fear across the community. The order would have effectively endorsed broad discrimination against the LGBTQ community on everything ranging from social services to healthcare to education to jobs, based upon religious reasons – likely violating the First Amendment.

While the White House denied the leaked order and backed away from the overt discrimination, Trump’s “Religious Liberty” order increased the latitude with which religious organizations can publicly favor or oppose candidates while remaining tax-exempt (a unilateral undermining of the Johnson Amendment), directed government to “to vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom,” and directed federal agencies to consider exempting some religious groups from providing birth control to employees and staff.

The light in this legislative tunnel is that a federal appeals court in Chicago ruled that companies cannot discriminate against LGBT employees, one interpretation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that may make its way to the Supreme Court.

Corporate surge in protecting LGBTQ rights

As legislative protection rolls backwards, the Corporate Equality Index 2017 report (CEI) released by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC) indicates that a record number of top U.S. businesses are leaping forward in protecting LGBTQ rights and providing benefits.

517 businesses earned the CEI’s top score of 100, a 25% jump within a single year and “the largest jump in the 15-year history of the nation’s premiere benchmarking tool for LGBT workplace equality.”

HRC notes that companies with non-discrimination protections for gender identity has increased from 3% (in 2002) among the Fortune 500 companies to 82% (including Walmart), showing commitment to protecting transgender workers.

This year, the report also expanded benchmarks to include global policies, and now 92% of CEI-rated companies “include both sexual orientation and gender identity non-discrimination protections that apply to workers domestically and internationally.”

As written in Quartz, “Businesses are becoming increasingly invested in LGBT rights and diversifying their workforce because, as Out Leadership’s managing director Stephanie Sandberg says, ‘their competitive edge depends on it.’”

Business sustainability is interlinked with employee equality. “Big business was way out ahead of government when it came to creating domestic partner benefits for their teams—and they remain way out in front when it comes to non-discrimination policies,” noted Todd Sears, founder of Out Leadership.

Corporate activism against anti-equality legislation = good business

Multinational companies are not only poised, but increasingly called upon, to lead the LGBT equality revolution, arguably because it benefits them to do so.

HRC notes that U.S. companies are increasingly playing a leading activist role in “opposing anti-equality legislation” at the state and federal levels. Last year, 68 companies joined HRC to oppose North Carolina’s HB2 “bathroom bill” while over 200 businesses signed an open letter to repeal the law.

“Corporate America has risen to the top in terms of being a high-impact influencer” on LGBT rights, said Deena Fidas, Director of HRC’s Workplace Equality Program. “We have corporations going on the record at the federal level, at the judicial level and certainly at the state level speaking out against what we would call anti-LGBT bills.”

As Sears told Quartz,

“Big businesses are positioned to drive equality because, again, a state-based patchwork of laws that impact their ability to attract, retain, and support all of their employees is ultimately bad for business.”

“Laws that prevent LGBT equality across many state and country borders impose a significant burden on these companies and harm their ability to attract and retain the best employees,” echoed Selisse Berry, CEO and founder of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, and Ken Janssens in Newsweek. “That’s why multinational firms must speak out for equal rights wherever they do business.”

 “Don’t just do no harm. Do good.” 

 At the International Business and Human Rights Conference in April, Netherlands Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Lilianne Ploumen, noted international companies taking up the mantle of corporate human rights defenders, and urged more to do so.

At the base level, protecting human rights must be paramount within a company’s own supply chain. Ploumen stated, “We need to be very clear on this: sustainable development without respect for human rights is an illusion. We cannot call economic growth ‘sustainable development’ if people’s rights are being trampled to make it possible.”

“Going beyond human rights in your own value chain is the next frontier in business and human rights,” she added, citing the examples of corporate advocacy in North Carolina and Georgia as ready evidence of the need even in ‘developed’ countries. “Companies that are not just concerned with their own value chains, but are willing to advocate for human rights more broadly. Both because they believe it’s the right thing to do and because they know their customers expect no less of them.”

Ploumen pointed out that multinational companies hold unique and powerful leverage when it comes to advocating civil rights because states and countries want their business, echoing a Davos 2016 discussion. Companies must impress, she said, that “legal certainty for companies and human rights for citizens go hand in hand.”

Ploumen urged business leaders,

“You too can join the ranks of the corporate human rights defenders. Because you know that, in the end, respecting human rights pays off. I know that’s what you want. And you know it’s what your customers and shareholders want – even if some of them don’t know it yet. So don’t just do no harm. Do good.”

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Black History Month

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We hope you have enjoyed our featured articles and career profiles during Black History Month.

Take a look at some of our Featured Black History Month articles from previous years:

Black-History-MonthBlack History Month 2016 – Honoring African American Women in Business

In honor of Black History Month 2016, this month The Glass Hammer will feature interviews with notable African American women at leading firms on their career experiences, aspirations, and advice for other women in their field. Theglasshammer.com all year long and over the past nine years ensures we profile women of all social identities and experiences and we have always stated from the beginning that we want our readers to have many different role models.

diverse women in the boardroomBlack History Month Coverage: Diversifying Diversity for Better Results

Leadership diversity pays off, and a new study by McKinsey “Why Diversity Matters” has the hard numbers to prove it. It also points out that most corporate diversity programs don’t go far enough to be inclusive of ethnically diverse leaders. The Glass Hammer has long upheld the “business case for diversity,” and senior women in the corporate space will be pleased to see statistically significant results supporting this argument.

black female leader featuredBlack Women in Business: An update on progress

When we talk about the progress that has been made by women in corporate America, using gender to mean ‘all women’, what we’re actually referring to is the progress and gains that have been made by white women.

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