I had the pleasure of co-hosting and speaking at the JPMorgan Chase Women in Leadership Executive Dinner and wow, what an empowering evening! We brought together a community of female leaders from around the Bay to discuss overlooked barriers to gender equity and actionable strategies to elevate women in the workplace. The energy from each person in the room was palpable and I know I left feeling inspired.
A special thank you to our panelists for sharing their insight and experiences:
Camille Burns CEO of the Women Presidents Organization
Renee La Londe Founder and CEO of iTalent Digital
Lisa Smoot President of SF Bay Coffee
Jocelene Kwan Chief Financial Officer at Babylist
Another shout out to the rockstars, change makers and all around good people who brought together such a community of leaders to make this event happen: LaSandra Hunt, Debbie Gersten and Ashley Labrie They brought intention from the woman owned (stunning) venue to pouring woman vintner to hiring our phenomenal photographer Liv Rhodes.
A few of our takeaways:
-Although today women make up 46% of the US labor force, we’re only 28% of executive and senior leadership. In the S&P 500 only 8.6% of CEOs are female and only 3.4% are women of color.
-There are currently more men at the top not because they’re more qualified, but because they were legally supported to enter the workforce during their lifetimes (1964 Title 9, 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act).
-We have to actively track our progress and can’t stop at just recruiting numbers. Other metrics companies should be tracking are pay, retention, and advancement.
-We need to teach our teams about implicit bias and have continued training on diversity, equity and inclusion.
-We need communities both in and out of the office where we encourage each other to own our voices and create change.
#womeninleadership #genderequity #empowerwomen
