Half the Talent - Building Gender Balanced Business

Goldman Sachs has said that different countries and regions of the world could dramatically increase GDP simply by reducing the gap in employment rates between men and women:

• the Eurozone could increase GDP by 13%
• Japan by 16%
• the US by 9%

• Women perceived to outscore men in seven key leadership competencies out of ten, according to new research from Prof. Herminia Ibarra and Otilia Obodaru, published in the Harvard Business Review (The Vision Thing). And, by the way, women were perceived to score less well on “envisioning” as perceived by their males peers only (but see below). More

• Again, women perceived to score well on five key leadership criteria out of 9, according to Mckinsey study, and this time women do well on envisioning (referred to as “inspiration”). More

• Are women set to become the majority of the workers as well as the majority of talent? More

• Women forecast to become an even bigger majority of the graduate talent base in just 11 years, according to an OECD study. It predicts women will be 68% of the graduates in Denmark in 2020, 70% in Italy, 72% in the UK and 76% in Sweden. More

• Teams driving innovation improve performance when they have an equal balance of men and women. More

• Equality and Human Rights Commission, Financial Times July 20th, 2008
• European Union, SHE Figures, 2007
• Wittenberg-Cox & Maitland, Why Women Mean Business, Wiley 2008