CEO of the Laidlaw Foundation, Susanna V. Kempe, was recently featured in London Business School’s publication Think to explain how organisations can dramatically redress the gender imbalance with simple, pragmatic steps.
June 4, 2020
Excerpt from Think:
“If you rank the Fortune 500 companies by the number of women on their boards, those that have the most women are in the top quartile. Or if you look at investments made by companies led by women, they generate 10% more in terms of cumulative value,” says Kempe. “Every single data point proves it and yet people still don’t do it. It’s maddening.”
Kempe’s frustration is apparent, but she is also a big advocate for actions speaking louder that words when it comes to advancing inclusion in business. That has seen the establishment of the Laidlaw Women’s Leadership Fund, which last year awarded London Business School £3.69m to continue its work promoting social change in education. The fund will support the School’s vision for equal representation across its degree programmes, but for Kempe the responsibility for levelling the playing field for women in business lies with every organisation: “We all have a role to play but clearly for some people their unconscious bias is so embedded that changing it can prove a challenge. But it doesn’t have to be. In fact, I think it’s really simple.”
Read the full Think article here.
Read Susanna’s post about 10 simple steps leaders can take to achieve gender parity in their organisations here.