Davos: Where are the women? Part II - Building Gender Balanced Business

Since my editorial and my Business Week article on the lack of women at the World Economic Forum’s get together in Davos this year, I have managed to obtain the full list of delegates.

My count from the list is that there are 213 women in the list out of 2500 delegates. The WEF has since informed WOMEN-omics that the number of women officially reigstered is 360 – and therefore 15% of the delegates are women (see below). This is two percent less than in 2008.

At times like these we need innovative and fresh thinking to go beyond the failed ideas of the past. Already, two Icelandic nationalised banks have recruited women to clean up the financial mess left behind by a male-dominated boom. (Iceland calls women to fix men’s mess).

It is time to let more women air their views at events such as Davos, not less.

• I can confirm that our official registration figures conclude that there are over 360 women at the Annual Meeting 2009. The overall percentage is thus 15% (final statistics will only be available after the meeting).

• Please note also that our Members and Partners select the business executives that they choose to send to participate in the Annual Meeting. As already stated in my previous message, when we look at the statistics, it is clear that there is an external barrier in the presence of women among senior corporate leadership.

• On the non-business side, the World Economic Forum makes significant efforts to ensure that the highest ranking women from the NGOs, Social Entrepreneurs, Labour Leaders, Media Leaders and Faculty are represented. This figure is over 20% of participants.

• Finally, among our community of Young Global Leaders, a multistakeholder community of exceptional young leaders who share a commitment to shaping the global future, the figure is a very encouraging 30%, representing a shift in the composition of the upcoming generation of leaders.

Saadia Zahidi,Head of Constituents,World Economic Forum.

• Young men, testosterone and the financial mess