In case you haven’t seen it the New York Times has a fantastic series called “The Female Factor.” This post’s focus is on an article written by Katrin Bennhold of the New York Times on women attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos. As we saw in my Jan. 24th post regarding the new gender quotas for corporate partner attendees at Davos female attendance hovers at 17%. Shocking low for what is supposed to “engage the leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” The quotas have succeed in raising the number of female corporate attendees but have yet to make a significant impact on the total number of female attendees at Davos.
Furthermore, despite the new quotas, brilliant and accomplished women like Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister had admitted to feeling “inhibited” at Davos. This previous lack of emphasis on women has resulted in what some women have called a “reality gap”. In response some women have left the World Economic Forum to start the Women’s Forum in Deauville, France. Other changes have been internally focused such as the World Economic Forum’s women’s networking cocktail and the increased emphasis on “women-related” dialogue at the Forum.
Finally the article acknowledges the work of Nicole Schwab, the daughter of World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab. Ms. Schwab has founded The Gender Equality Project to recognize companies that “proactively manage gender diversity” to achieve “business success.”
Click here to read the full NYT’s article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/world/europe/27iht-letter27.html?scp=2&sq=the%20female%20factor&st=cse
Nicole Schwab is just the type of professional that we at WIPA encourage and admire. She saw a problem and built up a solution to fill the gap.
WIPA is about encouraging our members to strive for more, demanding more from themselves and their environment. Kudos to Ms. Schwab!
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