Time magazine unveiled its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world Thursday, including record numbers of 45 women and 45 people under the age of 40.
"The TIME 100, always a reflection of its moment, looks quite different than in the past," Time Editor-in-Chief Edward Felsenthal wrote in a letter explaining how the magazine chose the 100 people on the list. "Influence increasingly knows no single zip code and no minimum age." The magazine paired guest contributors to write about each of the 100 people on the list. Former president Barack Obama says he draws inspiration from the Parkland, Fla., shooting survivors turned activists who organized the March for Our Lives rally against gun violence. “They have the power so often inherent in youth: to see the world anew; to reject the old constraints, outdated conventions and cowardice too often dressed up as wisdom,” Obama wrote about Jaclyn Corin, Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg, Cameron Kasky, and Alex Wind. "The power to insist that America can be better." Among the 45 women chosen were activist Tarana Burke, who founded Me Too and human rights activist Nice Nailantei Leng’ete, who has worked to end female genital mutilation in Kenya. "While we remain much too far from gender parity in global leadership, there are more women than ever on this year’s TIME 100—proof that there are ways of changing the world beyond traditional power structures," Felsenthal wrote. Six of the top 100 will be featured on covers of the magazine’s special issue, and include: Burke; tennis champion Roger Federer; comedian and actor Tiffany Haddish; actor Nicole Kidman; singer Jennifer Lopez; and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The list is not a measure of power or a collection of milestones but is instead, according to Felsenthal, "a designation of individuals whose time, in our estimation, is now." Or, in other words: “Was this their year?”
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WASHINGTON — Tuesday is “Equal Pay Day.”
It’s not a day of celebration, but more like a finish line for women. In 2018 women had to work, on average, until April 10 in order to earn as much money as men did by the last day of 2017. Each year, women hope that the distance to our finish line will be shorter and that the gap between what men and women are paid will close a bit more. Equal Pay Day reminds us of how far we’ve come, how far we have to go and the actions still needed to increase the earning power of our nation’s working women. When looking at median annual salaries for each group, U.S. women are paid about 80 cents for every dollar paid to men. And the pay gap is even worse for women of color. For significant change to occur, we believe more women need to assume leadership roles, especially by serving on corporate boards. There’s proof that having more women in board positions yields benefits for an organization’s performance, and for society as a whole. Statistics show there is plenty of potential for women to step into more board seats:
Boards of directors make decisions that can impact you, your community and the country. These boards choose CEOs who then make decisions about compensation and other ways to spend profits, including how to support various social causes. That’s why we think there should be more female voices representing our viewpoints and interests. In addition to societal advantages, research has shown that organizations themselves benefit from increasing diversity on their boards. First, gender diversity in a company’s leadership tends to attract and motivate talented employees who want leadership that reflects the diversity of today’s talent pool. Women are increasingly influencing spending decisions for their family’s wealth, so having women on a board provides more insight into the opinions and priorities of all consumers, not just males. Rodney McMullen, chairman and CEO of Kroger, suggested to his board that having a more diverse group of leaders “helps you avoid blind spots” when making important corporate decisions. For suggestions on how to improve your long-term financial security in the face of a pay gap, listen to Dawn’s WTOP 2017 Equal Pay Day interview. What are strategies women can use to achieve a corporate board seat? One of the reasons given for lower female representation in the boardroom is lack of sufficiently educated and qualified female talent. But statistics show women continue to earn advanced degrees at equal or higher rates than men. The real issue is not education, but lack of relevant experience. How then can women obtain the right qualifications to land a board position?
Our hope is that advocating for more representation for women on corporate boards will lead to stronger financial performance and higher pay for all employees, including women. Encouraging public companies to have a board that reflects the same diversity as their buying population is just one way everyone can make progress towards greater pay equality for all. Dawn Doebler, CPA, CFP®, CDFA® is a senior wealth adviser at The Colony Group. She is also a co-founder of Her Wealth®. Boardroom Gap: Companies with More Women in Leadership Perform Better (February 2018, Grank Welker)4/16/2018 Jennifer Conrad didn't have high expectations when she interviewed for a management position at the Leominster headquarters for Fidelity Bank. After all, she was seven-and-a-half-months pregnant.
"I felt like it was such a wasted effort," Conrad said. But "when I stepped out of the bank that day, I said, 'I need to be here.'" She was hired. And a decade later, Conrad, Fidelity Bank's senior vice president and senior cash management officer, serves as an example of a company's culture prioritizing having women in executive positions in equal numbers as men. "She was a very talented person and culturally aligned with how we treat our clients," said Ed Manzi, the Fidelity Bank CEO who hired Conrad and still leads the 10-branch bank. "It just seemed like the right thing to do." With nine women among its top 16 executives, Fidelity Bank is an outlier in the Central Massachusetts business community, as only four of the 42 local for-profit companies examined by WBJ had at least 40 percent women among their senior executives and board members. Fidelity Bank has seen its total deposits more than double in a decade to $659 million in 2016, and in the past year has grown through acquisitions of Barre Savings Bank and Colonial Co-operative Bank in Gardner. This type of financial success is a common thread among businesses with greater gender diversity in their leadership. Companies with women in at least 15 percent of senior management positions have 18-percent more profits than companies where women comprise less than 10 percent of those seats, according to a 2016 study by Swiss multinational financial institution Credit Suisse. The best performance was shown in companies where women make up half of senior leadership positions. "You don't get a diverse lens of what's happening inside and outside your company" without diversity, said Susan Adams, a Bentley University professor who's conducted research for the women advocacy group The Boston Club. "Women live different lives than men," Adams said. "They can see things differently." Woman-led profitsCompanies with women in the top leadership position (i.e. CEOs) were shown in the Credit Suisse study to perform better than those led by men, with 19-percent better profits. Among the 75 Central Massachusetts business organizations – including nonprofits – studied by WBJ, only nine led led by a woman, and none of those were public companies. One of the most recent female publiccompany CEOs in Central Massachusetts was Carol Meyrowitz, who led TJX Cos. from 2007 to 2016. The Framingham- and Marlborough-based owner of retail chains Marshalls, T.J.Maxx and HomeGoods touts relatively high levels of women throughout the business. Globally, 77 percent of TJX's workforce is female, as are 51 percent of assistant vice presidents. In the past three years, women at TJX have earned 51 percent of promotions into senior vice president roles, 40 percent of promotions into vice president roles, and 58 percent of promotions into assistant vice president roles. "At the board level and throughout the TJX organization, women are an important part of our workforce and represent an increasing percentage of our leadership team," Meyrowitz said in a statement. TJX has been a force in retail at a time when many of its competitors have struggled against big box stores and online retailers like Amazon. From the budget year Meyrowitz's CEO term began through the latest budget year, the company's profit rose 161 percent to $2.3 billion, sales jumped 69 percent to $30.9 billion, and the store count rose by 51 percent to more than 3,800. Meyrowitz said achieving goals at the company "relies to a great degree on our ability to continuously develop our next generation of leaders." Female CEOs = gender diversityFemale-led companies have been found to have better gender diversity throughout their ranks, according to a 2017 report by Chicago-based executive leadership consulting firm Spencer Stuart. At female-led American businesses, 33 percent of directors are female. At male-led firms, that rate is 22 percent. In Central Massachusetts, out of the 75 institutions examined by WBJ, the nine led by women have better records of appointing women to boards and executive offices. Their rate for boards is 43 percent, compared to 33 percent among all the organizations examined. Among executives, the rate is 57 percent at female-led entities compared to 36 percent among all. Female business leaders also help companies in intangible ways. Los Angeles-based executive recruiting firm Korn Ferry found last year in talking to 57 women CEOs at large national companies, female CEOs are more likely than male CEOs to be motivated by a sense of purpose and a belief their company could have a positive effect on the community and its employees. New York City-based investment research firm MSCI in a 2015 study found fewer instances of governance-related controversies such as cases of fraud and shareholder battles at companies with better gender diversity. Manzi, Fidelity Bank's CEO since 1997, said gender equality has never explicitly been the bank's objective. "We didn't target a number," he said, adding of the qualified candidates the bank has chosen, "it just so happens that a lot of them are women." On one wall in a Fidelity Bank meeting room is a message illustrating the bank's priorities with employees: "If you value the differences in people, the differences will provide value." Female-inclusive firms remain the exceptionOf Central Massachusetts's 17 public companies, women make up only 8 percent of executive positions. Twelve of the 17 companies don't have a female senior executive, and half of those don't have a female board member. "Biases and misconceptions continue to linger," said Danna Greenberg, a professor of organizational behavior at Babson College in Wellesley. Female candidates generally need to push for themselves for consideration more than a man does, Greenberg said, and a woman who might be seen as pushy could cause a different reaction than a man would. "Women need to figure out much earlier in their career how they balance that pushback from being a strong self-advocate," Greenberg said. Women held fewer high-level positions decades ago because they were less likely to have college degrees, but that's changed. Women make up a higher percentage of college graduates than ever, outnumbering men for the first time in 2014, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. "They're very highly educated, which has changed," Adams said of female candidates for high-level jobs. "You couldn't say that 20 years ago. You probably couldn't even say that 15 years ago." At Fidelity Bank, Conrad said she's seen an environment not typical in finance. "In my 20 years in banking, I hate to use this term, but it can be seen as a boys' club," she said. "It's so refreshing to go to chamber events with more women representing companies. I'd like to see more. Who wouldn't?" CORRECTION: This story has been changed to reflect that it was Fidelity Bank's deposits, not assets, that rose to $659 million. I have spent many hours talking with colleagues in international development about how to tear down the barriers that block women’s progress around the world. Now, we’re confronting the fact that every sector, including our own, has a serious problem with sexual harassment and violence. The norms that allow these abuses are the same ones that disempower the poorest women, and only when they are dismantled across the globe will all women and girls be able to lead the lives they want.
Practically speaking, though, what can a philanthropic organization like ours do to promote a goal—equality everywhere—that’s impossibly large? We’ve been investing in women’s health for a long time and seen significant progress. But as I spend more time visiting communities and meeting people around the world, I am convinced that we’ll never reach our goals if we don’t also address the systematic way that women and girls are undervalued. With a new focus on women’s economic empowerment, connecting women to markets, making sure they have access to financial services, and empowering them to help themselves, we aim to help tear down the barriers that keep half the world from leading a full life. We’ll spend $170 million over the next four years to help women exercise their economic power, which the evidence suggests is among the most promising entry points for gender equality. Simply put when money flows into the hands of women who have the authority to use it, everything changes. First, their families benefit. One in three married women in the poorest countries have no say over major household purchases. Research shows, however, that women are much more likely than men to buy things that set their families on a pathway out of poverty, like nutritious food, health care, and education. In Niger, for example, when women had more financial autonomy, their families ate more meat and fish. One of the most astonishing statistics I’ve seen is that when a mother has control over her family’s money, her children are 20% more likely to survive. Second, everyone starts to re-think the part women can play in their own communities. A recent study in India found that merely owning and using a bank account led women to work outside the home more. As a result, they earned more money, but they also changed men’s perception of them. By defying a social norm that confined them inside, they started to change it. Women acting on their own can do what all the philanthropic organizations in the world can never accomplish: change the unwritten rule that women are lesser than men. Our role, as we see it, is to make targeted investments that give women the opportunity to write new rules. First, our new gender equality strategy will seek to link women to markets. Hundreds of millions of women help run small farms across Africa and Asia, raising crops and livestock, but in most cases, they do so without knowing what is a fair price for their products. We want to help them overcome this barrier and prosper from their labor. To do so, we’ll support women farmers as they organize in collectives that aggregate produce from small farms and sell it to buyers at a fair price and, where possible, use mobile phone applications that provide real-time price information. We also want more women to use digital bank accounts. Many governments send welfare or safety net payments to low-income families, but this money is usually controlled by men. We will work on systems in eight countries, including India, Pakistan and Tanzania, to deposit it into accounts controlled by women. Finally, we’ll support self-help groups where women and girls teach one another about everything from launching a small business to raising healthy children—and reimagine their standing in society. In India, the more than 75 million women who already belong to such groups have proven a force for real progress. We want younger girls to have the same opportunity. During adolescence, parents place more restrictions on their daughters, and girls’ range of movement shrinks—in South Africa, for example, by more than half. Self-help groups can widen their horizons. I gained a valuable perspective on self-help groups when I spent an afternoon in Jharkhand, India, with Neelam Bhengra. She joined a group to learn how to increase the yields on her farm. But gradually, she organized the members to advocate for themselves with local government. “If I’m alone, I can’t do anything,” she told me. But with the support of her group, she said, “I will keep fighting for women until I die.” Neelam is a force for generations to come. She told me all about her children, who were going to school and planning for a future Neelam herself never imagined. The data says that their children, Neelam’s grandchildren, will be even more healthy–and more prosperous. We want to help more Neelams find their voice, seize opportunities, and change their world—and their children’s world—into what they dream it can be. 1. The Mindful Giver Hali Lee, 51, founder of the Asian Women Giving Circle and co-founder and co-executive director of Faces of Giving, dedicated to amplifying the power of philanthropy. "In my mind's eye, I'm 28 years old, so the gift of now is that I have the energy and ideas of a younger person with the experience and insight of an older person. It's impossible to have everything, do everything, be everything. It is possible to do well enough, get by, try your hardest, be okay with the grays and the imperfects and to have a good enough time — dare I say fun — while doing so." 2. The Social Reformer Sujatha Jesudason, 51, Professor of Management at the New School and founder and Executive Director of CoreAlign, a reproductive justice organization. "At this age, I'm trying new things — what better time to risk it all? I just moved to New York City for the first time in my life. I'm the most impactful I've ever been in my work, and I'm also transitioning into the role of mentor. More of my energies are going into supporting other women, and in this political moment, that is powerful. We need to go all out." 3. The Breakthrough Researcher Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, 66, a leader in contraceptive research and family planning services at New York Presbyterian Hospital at Columbia University Medical Center. "When I turned 60 I thought, 'What would be worth accomplishing at work in the next 10 years?' and I chose to focus on enduring problems in the area of oral contraceptives, how to move those forward. In my 60s, I'm calmer and wiser, with a lot of history to draw on when issues arise — and I'm so grateful that the smart, idealistic young people I work with are not despairing even now. They're dynamite." 4. The Design Innovator Ruth Lande Shuman, 74, founder of Publicolor, a not-for-profit organization using design projects to empower struggling students to realize their potential. "Curiosity continues to imbue my work, which allows me to be flexible and responsive to new ideas. My age and experience mean that I can act as a mentor to young talent, which is enormously energizing! I am more patient, but I still have a sense of urgency around my work, and I want to keep growing Publicolor's impact, helping even more high-risk low-income students reach their potential." 5. The Founding Feminist Marie Wilson, 77, founder of the White House Project, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and creator of Take Our Daughters to Work Day."It's hard for me to slow down, even now. What keeps people strong and healthy is the ability to make change — in their job, in their community or in their home. What's kept me sane is the continual ability to do something about what's wrong in the world — through the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the gay rights movement, and all the things we are struggling with right now. I get up every morning and I know there's something I can and must do." 6. The Cultural Curator Nancy Spector, 58, Artistic Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum."At this point in my life I am able to be decisive and direct in my leadership but also still open and attuned to what is new, radical, and risky in my field. I am deeply committed to doing what I love, honing my curatorial skills, and looking for opportunities to use art to address the profound concerns of our time." 7. The Intrepid Advocate Sayu Bhojwani, 50, founder and President ofNew American Leadersand author of People Like Us, about American democracy. "As an immigrant woman of color, I represent so much that is under attack in this country today. Yet I have never been more sure of who I am and what I believe is possible here. That I continue to lean into my work at the intersection of immigration and politics is a testament for women like me to never shy away from the battle for our place at the table." 8. The Eco Protector Deborah Goldberg, 63, Managing Attorney ofEarthjustice's, Northeast regional office. "I work as an environmental lawyer and we are trying very hard to protect a healthy planet for all species. Right now I'm working to get New York State law to require cleaning products to disclose their list of ingredients so people aren't bringing home things that will make their families sick. These are difficult times, and at this age, I have a long view — I know that we need to stay hopeful and keep fighting." 9. The Scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, 58, renowned civil rights advocate and leading scholar of critical race theory at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School. On intersectionality, a term she helped advance: "Without frames that allow us to see how social problems impact all the members of a targeted group, many will fall through the cracks of our [social justice] movements. When there's no name for a problem, you can't see a problem. When you can't see a problem, you can't solve it." 10. The Organizer Heather Booth, 72, organizer for justice and democracy. "It is a gift to be able to do the work building a better society where all people will be treated with dignity and respect. And at this age, I am grateful to have a little more confidence than I did earlier. We are in perilous and inspiring times. The stakes are so high, but often out of the greatest crisis comes the greatest progress. But only if we organize." I am not a masochist, and clearly as a singer in a rock ‘n’ roll band I prefer the roar of the stadium’s affection to the whistles and boos of town-hall politics. But I must say I quite enjoyed the trouble I got into about a year ago when I was the lone man honored as part of Glamour’s Women of the Year awards. My favorite trash-talking tweet came from a woman who said that in my defense, my glasses did make me look like a 75-year-old granny from Miami. Or another who said it was inspiring how I’d overcome “the adversity of being a millionaire white dude.”
I was aware and I was glad that I was being offered up as a firestarter for a debate the magazine rightly wanted to have about the role of men in the fight for gender equality. It seemed obvious to me that the sex who created the problem might have some responsibility for undoing it. Men can’t step back and leave it to women alone to clean up the mess we’ve made and are still making. Misogyny, violence and poverty are problems we can’t solve at half-strength, which is the way we’ve been operating for a few millennia now. I say it seemed obvious to me, but if I’m honest, it didn’t always. I have been home-schooled on this issue in a very powerful way by my wife Ali and our two daughters. The news that I was getting Glamour’s first Man of the Year award amped up a conversation in our house–that Eve and Jordan think is the only conversation–about the fact that, as Jordan reminds me, there is nowhere on earth where women have the same opportunity as men. Nowhere. Which has something to do with the fact that around the world, there are 130 million girls who are not in school. That’s so many girls that, if they made up their own country, it would be bigger in population than Germany or Japan. Denying girls what an education offers–a fair shot, a path out of poverty–means that women can work the land but can’t own it; they can earn the money but can’t bank it. This is why poverty is sexist, as we say, and say loudly, at ONE to anyone listening, especially the world leaders who are supposed to guarantee universal access to education by 2030, the target they set in the Sustainable Development Goals. There isn’t just room for righteous anger at the injustice of all this, there is a need for it and for outrage at the violence–physical, emotional and legal–that perpetuates it. But there is also, in the facts, room for hope. Because the research is clear–it’s plain on the page and has been proved on the ground–that funding girls’ education isn’t charity but investment, and the returns are transformational. Give girls just one additional year of schooling and their wages go up almost 12%. Give them as much schooling as boys get and things really start changing. Closing the gender gap in education could generate $112 billion to $152 billion a year for the economies of developing countries. When you invest in girls and women, they rise and they lift their families, their communities, their economies and countries along with them. They rise–and they lead. That is, unless they continue to be held back and pushed down. Which could be the case. We’ve had a hard lesson over the past year that the march of progress is not inevitable. Sexism is rampant, conscious and unconscious. I’m still working on my own. Hopelessness is running high right now, and cynicism is cresting. But these are things the world can’t afford. There are 130 million girls counting on women and men to get our collective act together, push for better policies and pressure politicians to do more and fund more of what works–things like the Global Partnership for Education, which is due for replenishment early this year. The key lesson in my own home-schooling is something Ali has been saying to me since we were teenagers: don’t look down on me, but don’t look up to me, either. Look across to me. I’m here. It just may be that in these times, the most important thing for men and women to do is to look across to each other–and then start moving, together, in the same direction. Making education a priority is a way of making equality a priority, and even men with limited vision should see that’s the only way forward. Three efforts could kick-start progress to get more women in leadership positions. The case for gender diversity is compelling, but McKinsey research—including a new report, Women Matter 2016: Reinventing the workplace to unlock the potential of gender diversity—shows many companies are struggling to ensure women are represented fairly in top management. Progress toward parity remains slow. In Western Europe, only 17 percent of executive-committee members are women, and women comprise just 32 percent of members of corporate boards for companies listed in Western Europe’s major market indexes (exhibit). In the United States, the figures are 17 percent for executive committees and just under 19 percent for boards. Would you like to learn more about our Organization Practice?
European women work more part-time and more unpaid hours than men. Our new study found a correlation between the representation of women in leadership positions and women’s employment rate, as well as their hours of unpaid work. Increasing the number of women in top management requires tackling these two inequalities. Governments have a strong role to play in addressing this issue and creating the conditions for equal opportunities. But companies also have to do their part. To better understand what companies do, and what they could do further, in 2016, we surveyed 233 companies and 2,200 employees in nine European countries.1 Analysis showed that while the vast majority of companies have introduced measures to increase gender diversity at the top, many have yet to see significant results. Among our findings:
Previously, we outlined a comprehensive gender-diversity ecosystem that companies can put in place to increase women’s representation at each level of the organization. Building on this, our 2016 research shows that three game-changers distinguish best-in-class companies:
We believe it will take government and business-led interventions to create an environment that offers women better opportunities; enables them to train for and work in skilled, better-paying roles; reshapes social norms and attitudes; and supports work–life balance. To achieve this, companies will need to transform themselves by reevaluating their traditional performance models and by challenging the long-term viability of their prevailing leadership styles. About the author(s) Sandrine Devillard and Sandra Sancier-Sultan are senior partners in McKinsey’s Paris office, where Alix de Zelicourt is a consultant and Cecile Kossoff is the director of knowledge dissemination and communications. The task force presented these abridged results to President Salovey in November of 2017 and will be presenting to the general public at the Yale Club of New York City on February 21st along with a discussion with Elizabeth Alexander '84, Renowed poet, author and former chair of Yale's African American Studies Department.
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