Davos 2013 - Women in Economic Decision-making

0:00 good morning good morning ladies and gentlemen welcome to the panel on women and economic decision-making I'm Herminia Ibarra from inside Business School and I'm very much looking forward to what will most certainly be a very engaging and lively debate closing gender gaps at the highest level of economic participation is becoming more and more urgent for more and more people we all know the statistics or many of us know the statistics let me share some of the most familiar ones women on boards 14 to 16 percent in the developed world many countries lower than 5 percent in Europe women CEOs and chairmen 3 to 4

0:47 percent in the US and Europe in OECD countries women on executive committees 5 percent is the average in the c-suite the level right below the numbers are also quite low hovering around 15 percent and the bad news isn't really in those numbers the the bad news is in the slow progress they really have been flatlining for quite some time and that's where people have started to ask why so slow how can we get better progress on the these numbers what stuck particularly given that now women are 60% of graduates and are entering occupations and organizations in many places in equal proportions to men but

1:33 then something happens and what we know for sure from the research is that even when men and women enter in equal proportions the higher up you go the thinner the numbers get everywhere you look and there's a real what I like to call cliff at the mid-career level that has been a real barrier to us seeing higher proportions at the more senior level now I think I hope by this point the business case is very clear there's a lot of research that has shown the benefits of having gender diversity in terms of economic growth and sustainability in terms of better governance and transparency in terms of better decision-making by having more diverse

2:20 points of view expressed and available for making good decisions and in terms of inspiring more women to go for it and aspire to those positions but despite all of that there are still vast differences of opinion at times with regard to the means how are we going to get there some lively debate there's many implementation gaps we mean to do it but it somehow it doesn't get executed as we might hope and so we have what is the ideal panel or the best possible panel we can have to really get into these issues and really start to figure out how we shape agendas by increasing the representation of women at the most senior levels we're going to

3:07 talk about a few different things what difference does it make when women are the first in their position what are the pros and cons of using regulation to move the needle or boost the speed at which this is happening and what can we do about those intractable mid-career barriers that we see over and over we have our panel is very well known to most of you Managing Director Lagarde of the IMF president Foust from Harvard Viviane Reding the European Commission Kevin Kelly CEO of Heydrich Luke now Lyon Deputy Chairperson and CEO of a Lyon finance and Sheryl Sandberg CEO oh and member of

3:52 the board of Facebook so I'm quite confident that together we can really talk about this I'd like to start first by asking you Christine a question and I've I've changed my question slightly since I got here having listened to you on Wednesday but my question to you is going to be what difference does it make when women are at the very top of economic decision making organizations and I'll still ask it but having listened to you was a speech that you made on Wednesday that I think marked a lot of people you opened by talking about women in India women in Pakistan perhaps not the most

4:38 typical speech that one might have expected at the IMF but you made it very clear why those stories are incredibly relevant to the economic growth of the world so let me ask you both the broad and the specific what difference does it make well first of all it gives us a chance to speak up for what we care about and I do care a lot about gender diversity I do care a lot about inclusiveness and I care about it because it's important for Humanity I care about it because it's important for more economics and I hope that I've convinced a number of people on Wednesday that it makes economic sense to improve the situation of women to

5:24 make sure that they have access to education that they have access to health that they have access to jobs that they have access to financing and that they can sit at the table with the same and the equal equal rights and opportunities it's not the case in many corners of the world but as you know my economists very often at the moment say there are downside risks well on the gender front I think that there are huge upside risks about embracing the cause of of diversity now in terms of you know what what what difference does it make I think we all come to whatever we do whoever we are with our heritage with how we've been brought up with how we've seen our parents our grandparents behave

6:12 and and operate themselves and very often as as we as a little girl then as a young woman you know I have suffered my lot of discrimination I was brought up with brothers I grew up in a boy's world and I had to not fight for survival that was okay but you have to elbow your way in and when when you come with that sentiment of having been in a minority for a long period of time then you have much more attentive to minorities you're much more attentive to what differences can how can they can improve the understanding how they can enlarge the horizon and I think as a result as far as I'm concerned I think I listen more

6:58 I'm more attentive to those in the back of the room that sit in the dark and don't want to talk and yet have a lot to contribute so you know typically people will say women are more more inclusive they're more they're better team players and I think it's partly because of our history of our heritage of what we have ourselves had to face and as a result we're just more attentive to those those differences just a quick follow-up because you you've really talked about the whole bandwidth from women in places where even basic human rights or basic human rights are not yes respected to equality at the very top of organizations so sometimes we get stuck in a debate why should we be worrying about women on boards when there is this

7:44 other vast universe of of problems that are more primal that are more important what's the relationship between the two for you it matters all across the board and whether it's in developing countries in advanced economies the the degree and level of violence against women is not very different whether you're talking you know developing world or very advanced economies despite what people don't want to the fact that they don't really want to talk about it or face it obviously there are civilizations there are cultures there are regions where the situation of women is made worse because they don't have access to education for instance because they don't have access to health because they can't decide on you know natality as far as their family

8:30 is concerned and for them a different effort has to be undertaken but it matters across the board across the the level of development and across cultures because each and every one of us is a human being entitled to this right to education health and the right to choose so I'd like to ask you president Faust my next question which is which is in a way similar aisle you're also a woman first first president of Harvard a woman president of Harvard and I remember that when you were first asked about that your reaction was I'm not the first woman president of Harvard I am I am the president of Harvard and that since you've thought about this a little bit

9:15 differently so maybe you couldn't share your views on that and also the more general topic of what difference does it make sure you're referring to a press conference that was held when my appointment was announced and the first question I got was about being the woman president of Harvard and I said I'm not the woman president of Harvard meaning I don't want to serve with an asterisk next to my name as if I got a special identity or special category instead I wanted to be the president of Harvard who happened also to be a woman I found that I received really dozens maybe hundreds of letters after I was appointed from women around the world and particularly from young women and sometimes the parents of young women

10:02 saying how much it meant to them to see a president of Harvard be a woman and how it opened for them a sense of possibility and what education could be and could yield and that gave me a tremendous sense of responsibility for figuring out I thought how I could use the platform of Harvard and my identity as a woman to try to advance education in particular as an important field in which women could excel and which could enhance their lives but also to enhance women's status generally so when I travel I always go to girls schools and meet with young women and talk to them about their aspirations and it has made me very aware of how conversation

10:50 discussion highlighting this very session the existence of this session where we're talking about this focuses us on thinking hard and articulating the issues before us and so I think that conversation highlighting underlining your getting up and giving that speech all of that I think makes everyone recognize that it's all of our agenda to undertake these kinds of changes and it's something that we all must be committed to now you asked me a second part of the question which was what difference does it makes does it make I think I think you've said quite a bit about that I just want to say how resonant I found your comments about growing up with brothers and boys I also grew up in this world of boys and I

11:36 think it made me so aware of difference and the opportunity and that difference of interacting in ways that could change a dynamic or use the different socialization I had to be attentive to a room to a group to a community in a positive way in a variety of contexts later on and so I think I would just underscore what you said I think we bring those different kinds of training that girls had to wit to bear on how we interact in a way that I think has been said sometimes in relation to the developing world when you give microfinance to women or you empower women they're going to think about their families they're going to think about a broader community and I think that's part of young and I think it's part of

12:23 the the kind of upbringing that you you were describing the values that women are often instilled with Thank You Commissioner Redding my next question is to you you also have made some famous words the ones that I remember are I don't like quotas but I like what they do so in November you passed the law mandating forty percent women on corporate boards in Europe and you also said maybe fewer people heard this quote that in your 30 years plus in this business you've never seen such a fight and so tell us about that how did you become convinced this was the way to go and what that the the very strong

13:09 opposition and disagreement about this still all about what convinced me to go to this way well first the facts and the figures we are an aging I'm speaking about Europe of course because that is what I am responsible for we are an aging continent not having new enough new talent growing and then we have 65% of our university graduates which are females so at the most certain moment we leave those in a corner we train them we don't utilize them we do have the talent we do have the competence and we don't make use of it in our societies now all the studies which have been made not by

13:57 universities only but also by Goldman Sachs by Deutsche Bank by McKinsey and so on so forth they all show that more women you have in top management the better economic results you are doing now when you are in a time where you lose your talent and when you need to have more income what do you do well you push your talent upwards and that is exactly what I try to do first with asking the companies to do it by themselves you know what was the result nothing it went forward 0.5 percentage point per year and I calculated again if

14:43 we continue like this we are in 2060 before things are really in equilibrium now I don't want to wait until 2060 I think it is now the moment and that is one I started to think about something which generally speaking I don't like I don't like to intervene very close strongly but I thought it was the only way because I had also good examples France for example and you agree with me France was standing at 12 percent women on both of the listed companies France made an obligatory quarter and now Frances standing at 25

15:29 percent and that makes me to say well quarters might not be the right thing they are a tool but they do things and we like the things they do and so I proposed to bring together two things in our European law not to have a rigid quarter you must have so much women on board if you are a woman you are on board no if you are talent you are on board and that is why I wrote in the law that at equal talent at equal competence if there is a man and a woman to choose from as long as you do not have 40 percent on board you choose a woman then

16:14 to get to gives the position to it is about quality it is about not losing out our talent and I think the best are good enough in order to lead our companies and women are part of the best very short follow-up how long do you think quarters will have to be in place in Europe before we can go to natural selection well I do believe that we need to break through the glass ceiling and once we have broken through the glass ceiling things will become natural so also this law has

16:59 an expiry date because it is not meant to last it is meant just to do its job to break through and we have so many women I think that is also a message I would like to give because I hear very often that yes we would like to put women on boards but we don't find them so I passed this message to the business schools and there were the business schools in France and in Great Britain who joined forces because they had become very upset they had seen that women in were doing the best MBAs and got the worst positions after the MBAs so they made a searchable database they started Britain and France now it is a worldwide initiative inset has been a

17:46 driving force your university your Business School is on board too there is now an searchable database with 8,000 Seavey's of women who have done their MBAs who have year-long management experience and who are both ready who can be put on the boards at once so please do it since the moment I put the legislation in the pipeline you know what has happened the movement which wasn't there before has started in one year now we had 3% forward going 3% more women as a European average compare that with the

18:34 0.5% growing in the years before sometimes you need political leadership in order to change the business world thank you thank you Kevin I would like to ask you next so you you're looking at this from a very privileged standpoint in the search business where many boards and CEOs come to you to identify candidates now you know everybody has seen the research it does seem to make sense to have more women on boards for all the reasons that have been stated what are you seeing from your vantage point are you being asked more to identify women candidates are you able to find them have you had

19:20 any difficulty finding the quality candidates what's what are you hearing from your CEOs and your boards of directors on this topic sure first of all it's great to be on this very diverse panel secondly there's there's a line that has resonated with me for the last six years and that is we hire people because they're different and then we fire them because they're not the same and so that's what we see when it comes to diversity overall so we just did a survey actually and when we talk about gender diversity it's not about adding one or two females to aboard for me it's about increasing the overall quality of a board and I think many times that's overlooked we recently did

20:08 a survey which was fascinating because it talked about our 2012 Board of Directors survey where 51% of women actually believe there should be quotas and I think that's due to the frustration as you pointed out of how long it will take to actually catch up with the number of males on boards and only 25 percent of males believed in quota systems the remarkable thing for me is that to the point was that was made earlier women viewed the the male-dominated nominating and governance committees and relationships at the senior executive level is one reason they're weren't getting promoted in organizations where as men as you pointed out said there's a lack of talents and I'll give you a real-life story that happened yesterday and I

20:54 think this is the crux of the issue I made a fantastic senior executive yes today here she's in a footsie 50 organization ran many divisions international background great content credentials she was approached for a work position in the UK and she said to me it's as if this job specification was written for me and as she met the committee they said I'm sorry you don't have a seat on a foot c100 board already so therefore we can't count you as a candidate and I found that from quite frankly just appalling and I think this is one of the issues that we're running into when we look for board candidates across the globe but if you think about it out of the fortune 500 roughly 300 out of the 5500 board seats of the

21:40 fortune 500 only 300 turnover a year and out of those 300 20 percent of females are placed in these positions which even if we wave the magic wand and said okay let's increase that number to 50 percent or 70 percent it only moves to dial by 2.5 percent so again it would take a long time to get this in place so what I'm saying is that overall there's a lot of debate on whether it's government's whether it's the organisation's whether it's individuals that are responsible for creating more opportunity to have gender diversity on boards I actually believe one of the best things we can do is adhere to term limits because we're not seeing as much term turnover on boards and they're they don't have the accountability for pushing gender

22:27 diversity on boards because number one they're not holding they're not held accountable for talent management for performance of themselves they're held accountable for performance of the organisation so I think by having this focused more on the board of directors and their role in promoting gender diversity we'll be able to move the dial at a much faster pace so so you're saying better governance will lead to greater diversity on boards and we know it goes the other way around as well more diversity leads to better governance Lubner also also very much a woman first in your role in Saudi Arabia I want to ask you about the region a little bit more broadly a place where

23:13 the gender gap in terms of education is very much closed and closing depending on country but where economic participation still has been quite low for women it seems though that things have been changing fast there's a lot of recent news from the region so maybe you can give us an update as to what's going on yes women education as you have mentioned has been quite high for a while but opportunities for women working in sectors have not been as open now the first thing I have to say on the Arab world is really we really can't generalize it's different in different countries and I'm gonna

23:59 speak a little bit about my country because a lot of people view it as the most conservative of the countries in the Arab world there had what is very important is that there has to be a change from leadership from the top that there has to be changed and that is when we can move in that and prior I'm in the when I first moved to Saudi Arabia to work there in 1981 really the only fields available for women was medical or teachers that's the area of Medicine or teachers and so the area of business wasn't that too much available then women banking came along but women in in

24:45 the business world wasn't much available however there has been a sign from the Ministry of Labour given how the unemployment of for men has been increasing is to increase women participation in the workforce and this has taken place but the most important signal that came to the country was this month actually when everyone was waiting to see a sign coming in from from the king about women participation in true council which is our consultative council order Parliament and we had a say it was made a law that the authority women were appointed which is 20% of our

25:31 consultative council the statistics is I mean the number is phenomenal for quota we are among the highest in the in the whole region in terms of parliament and I actually checked it with the US government and that's equal to us women participation in in the US government so the signal is very much there now the qualifications of women in there because it's very important and I totally agree that it should not be lip service we should put quality women in there and if you read the qualifications of each of these women and they were all printed their CV is printed were really phenomenal women in their areas so that is a great signal now the challenge comes for us the private sector is the

26:17 government led the trend the government put it out there we have to follow and we have to catch up fast some of them and for this it was an interesting thing I asked our team our analyst team and by the way the head of our public equity in in our group is a woman and so I asked her can you serve way for me numb because it wasn't available number of women on boards of Arab companies a number of CEO publicly listed newer companies and I thought the numbers were a dismal but then when I looked at the West actually as you all have said it wasn't that much better so there is a change the only thing and I love the idea of having a pipeline of it and I

27:04 think the idea of universities using that is a great idea as well but that is something we have to work and we have to get the CEO of the major arab companies to be convinced of this idea and try to hire women promote women mentor women during that because that is what we need until our education gets right until we have the right qualification we have to take whatever population of women and get them trained but it can only happen is when there is focus in terms of CEOs and board and chairmanship in our group we have really given this recently a lot

27:51 of effort and a lot of thinking has been going and we are I am also not sure how I feel about quota but we are putting a pressure on a lot of our operating companies now to reach and it's it's part of the kpi's of the general managers and part part of their performance is to make sure that women are moving women are assigned and I have to say that is the way to go we need the sponsorship from the top and we need you know we need CEOs to to believe in it we need to change some mindset because a lot of them play lip service yes it's good it's the right thing that we all talk about it but do they really believe in it are they truly

28:37 committed that is one of our challenges just to build a little bit on what you said one of the great things about where we are now is how much research now exists to help us guide our next actions and and what you've mentioned that about CEO leadership and commitment comes up over and over again in the studies is a very critical factor in making sure this happens as well as some of the private public partnerships and then it gets to the how on the ground and I hope we'll have a chance to talk about that because what the research is showing as well is that in many places the will is there the motivation is there but there are

29:22 implementation gaps on how you do it how you mentor how you identify how you decide what's qualified that really need to be tackled to get to the next level Cheryl in that that's a good segue to you you have spoken a lot about the mid-career hurdles that women face in that account for the dwindling numbers at the top and you've been very passionate in challenging women and inspiring them and encouraging them to to lean in and to go with their ambition and to ask for it and I I'd love to hear your more recent thoughts on that and as well is if you have also some things to say about what

30:08 organizations can do to also help fill that ambition gap and to also work with these women who are leaning in to break those important barriers of the mid-level yeah I think organizations play a critical role organizations need to address the institutional barriers we all know about the overt discrimination the non overt discrimination the lack of flexibility but I think what the situation really calls for right now in addition to that is a much more open dialogue about gender because we are all determined and we are all judged and held back by very gender determined stereotypes and this is a conversation people rarely have and no one has in companies so the following is true there were t-shirts printed for little boys

30:54 and little girls the ones for boys said smart like daddy the ones for girls said pretty like mommy I wish I could say that was 1951 but that was last year in the United States now why does that matter for companies it matters a great deal because what the research shows us more than anything else is that the main difference between men and women in the workplace is that success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women which means that as a woman becomes more successful she is less liked very importantly by women and men and as a man is you know becomes more successful he is more liked and that starts with those t-shirts which were printed for 1 year olds so how does this transform in companies I've watched this a thousand times you go around and everyone's

31:40 talking about the team they go to each person on the team and they say what their strengths and weaknesses are they go to the man they say the strengths and weaknesses they go to the woman the next man they say this chance and weaknesses if it's a senior team they get to the one or two women and they say the same thing she's really good at her job she's just not as well-liked by her peers or I think she's doing a good job but she's a little aggressive and they say that with no understanding that this is the penalty women face based on gender specific stereotypes and so what I think is that if we actually need to talk about that at the company level because I've seen in my own experience on places I've been boards I sit on the companies I work and I talk about that really openly and the

32:26 next time there's a performance review the conversation changes because they might still say oh she's not as liked but they then have an appreciation for why that's happening the other conversation we need to have in in the corporation is the different pressures men and women feel at home we have totally different expectations and totally different things that women do in the home women still have two jobs in the most developed countries throughout the world and men of two men of one so you know think of a career as a marathon we know more women graduate from college so the men and the women they get to the starting line equally fit and trained what happens kind of goes off men and women run everyone's cheering the men on you can do this this is your life this is your career from the moment they leave school the message is for the

33:12 women are different are you sure you want to run don't you want kids one day should you start this marathon knowing you're not gonna finish and as you get more senior those voices get louder should you be working when you have kids at home how many women in this audience who work have been asked that how many men in this audience have been asked should you work because you have kids at home we have to talk about this and these are this is a different kind of conversation I wrote a book it's called lean in it's coming out in March others are working on this as well but I think what's happened is that we wanted to be equal all of us I grew up never talking about a woman I never spoke about being a woman in business until just a few years ago

33:58 because I was doing what everyone else was doing earning it you know fitting in not sticking out but I think we are held back by these gender stereotypes and they're the kinds of things there's a soft stuff that organizations don't talk about Dean Nitin Nohria is here from Harvard Business School it's an amazing case study over the last three years Harvard Business School has closed a very serious performance gap that existed between male and female students and actually American students and international students by basically addressing the soft stuff by going into classrooms and saying there's this gap here's why we have it and we want to close it no big structural changes were made but actually starting to have the conversation about why gender was holding people back made a huge difference and our companies are set up

34:45 our legal teams tell us not to say that so how many people in this audience have had the conversation at work we know women the childbearing years are a challenge for women to keep them we know that how many managers in this audience have sat down with a woman who has not mentioned it to you and said you may want to have a child one day I want to talk to you about that are you thinking about having children who's done that how many men have done that how many HR departments have told you to do that every HR department tells you not to do that but how are we going to get women through that that frame if we can't have that conversation and so I think we need to talk about gender openly and honestly understand that the stereotypes that start in childhood hold us back in the professional world and start having a much more open conversation

35:37 is is it happening already enough you gave one great example where why isn't it happening I mean look I published a thing I published something in fortune that said don't leave before you leave which talked about addressing head-on with women who were not yet in the childbearing age how they should lean in before they have children and when I wrote that piece my general counsel told me I couldn't publish it hmm and I spent 24 hours thinking oh it's too bad I can't publish my piece and then I was like wait a second he works for me and I walked into the room and I was like I hear you maybe there's a risk but if someone wants to you know sue me over gender discrimination because I'm talking to women about child rearing go ahead and I published it but most people don't have that choice and so I would say I want to

36:23 be honest about this even for me I've been doing this publicly for two years that is it no one talks about this and companies don't talk about this and at least in the United States our legal structures are set up that actually they don't do it on purpose but they backfire and prevent people from having open conversations and I think we need to see the cost of that and change this so we can start start changing the situation which is I think that the women are seen as aggressive when men are seen as ambitious this differentiation that you framed so well I think everybody in organizations needs to think about it but we've got to hold the media to task on this too because I think that these stereotypes are perpetuated so powerfully in the way women's actions

37:11 are covered in the press and the kinds of messaging that that is transmitted to our children and to all of us as well as I almost control no it's a great point I did this research for my book and I looked for representations in the media movies TV anything this was in the United States of a woman with kids who was happy just one just one woman who had a job and kids who was not frazzled she can't do it breaking down getting divorced and there are none there you cannot find one movie one TV show that has that character now how many men with kids have jobs and/or portrayed in any of these things all over the case and that is the issue you know even even beyond

37:56 that there was a recent article about Hillary Clinton that also spoke to this and it was her press team that was saying you know we'd like there to be more coverage of what she's saying but it's never about what she has to say it's always about what she was there saying or how she said it or how she looked when she said yeah it's not about it and that's a real that's real lever I mean one of the things that's coming out of these conversations is how many different parties and stakeholders can contribute to moving the needle whether it's business schools the media there's there's lots of us who can contribute to changing those stereotypes but these things this focus maybe not on the

38:42 substance for a while is an initial thing and we woman shouldn't be distracted by it that and we shouldn't even play to the media in that what do I mean by that I gave a speech in inject an early on and my veil dropped and I never spoke the focus was never on the content of the speech never it was always about that the head cover fell but the reason I'm citing this example is we should not even look at these or make an issue we should focus on what we have to do and we should not be distracted by things that will take away from what we're trying to accomplish so I would say we shouldn't pay it we

39:29 should have we have we have objectives we have goals we've set targets for them sell ourselves and we have to sponsor this I mean this platform here is the focus is how can we get women at the top how can we get women in on boards and that is a great objective and I really admire what Vivian had said I wish we can have in our part of the world a commission position for you the whole world needs this because there a great silver but that is what we have to focus I mean Christine has led an example for all of us and I think that is what we need is not to be distracted by what is said about us yes I would like to say

40:16 exactly the same we need to role models the female role models what you have done for women in finance and in world leadership is extraordinary I mean so many what Hillary Clinton has done for women in top leader politics as Angela Merkel the same thing we need women to show and I think that when you are a top leader as a female it is not about anymore how you are looking it is about what you are doing but it is also how you are bringing up

41:01 other women how you are helping women to come up and I think we have an enormous responsibility role models are essential but I tell you something also it is not enough it is not enough that women play their role model role we need men to help us to do this men are the ones who are the CEOs who are the presidents of big companies and I have seen all the big companies who have really managed to have women promoted it was because the CEO wanted it and has imposed it to the middle management because in the middle management is the biggest break for women to get up and here we have really to have the will of the top management

41:47 so that women get a chance to grow through a company that you know being the the male up here I said imagine next year and a panel like this if there was five male CEOs talking about how they drove gender diversity not only in the boardroom but through their organizations and I've had the great fortune of being a lot of diversity panels and it's myself maybe one other male and 100 women or 200 women and by the way that's fairly daunting when you're two men in a room of 200 women but I keep saying over and over to your point they're young you need to embrace the CEOs they're helping make the decisions and and you know have that side of the equation work - yeah thanks I'd just like to follow up

42:33 material loopner andrew is saying because I believe that in our leadership positions us but you all we have to dare the difference and we have to speak about it I'll give you one example that really shocked me in the last few months when I was traveling around the world and particularly in developing countries and I will not name the country and I will not name the leader but she's a woman she's a very very brave woman she has a tough job to you know turn the economy around and make sure that there is growth and and and and it's a very tough job incidentally women generally get the job when it's a basket case when it's a lost cause when it's really tough on when is bankrupt and they turn it

43:18 around look at the women head of banks at the moment Iceland they're still holding firm and they've turned around the - you know most hopeless banks in the country anyway that that leader who's a very very brave woman was explaining to me that she's facing a very tough moment because she's taking all those hard decisions and she has to travel around the country and she's decided to do so with small entourage only about five cars following hers you know the doctors called the security cars mode and she was saying to me it's terrible because when I go around the country in small cities and villages the woman in those

44:06 villages and cities think and say to me well men before you had about 25 cars why do you only have five that's because you're a woman you know it's terrible because she wants to be different she knows that it's needed to cut the deficit and she has to set standards yet because and that goes to you stereotypes point because the stereotypes the measurements the yardsticks have been set and often casting stones by others before them they feel that in order to compare and compete they have to use the same measurements they have to use the same attributes and I've spoken too and I keep calling you on a monthly basis now

44:52 to say hang on to that keep your 5 cards don't go beyond explain dare stand up speak about it and I'm going to continue doing so and I'm going to speak for her and support her and I think that you know when you say you leave your job at 5:30 Cheryl you do the same thing you dare the difference when I was raising my kids I was not going to work at my law firm on Wednesday afternoons and I was a young partner and I was taking well I was a senior associate then a young partner and I was taking my risk at the time of not filling up my time sheets on that Wednesday afternoon who cared I did the job I followed clients business I delivered on the files so I think we have to dare the difference and we have to talk about it so the conversation is absolutely appropriate and we need to use the voice

45:37 we have the positions we are in to actually support that yotz yotz ticks measurements stereotypes have to be adjusted they have to be different and sometimes our five cars are better than their 25 cars creational note in which to turn it over to her audience through some questions a rapper tor who will ask the first question is Laura Tyson from Berkeley maybe you can get us started and I'm gonna apologize because we're gonna have a very short question and answer period but please you know III think rather than ask a

46:25 question I will just give tremendous credit to the women here and to the World Economic Forum because this panel and all of the work that has gone on on the gender gap the gender gap index raising the profile of this issue so it really is now linked to global competitiveness think about the World Economic Forum it's about competitiveness it's about economic success and for the longest time the issue of gender diversity was not part of the discussion and here we are with leaders of major institutions in the world talking about diversity in the most serious possible way and bringing academic research in the most serious

47:10 possible way another thing that's happened here in the past 10 years is an amazing explosion of serious research on this issue and that's helped the Business School's train the board rotary members and it's helped the businesses make the case and finally I would just say that I learned a wonderful sort of the notion of discussing the difference daring the difference discussing the difference and linking it to how much this contributes to the competitiveness and success of national economies global international institutions major companies it's it's just wonderful to celebrate this panel with all of you thank you thank you

47:56 we'll have time for a couple questions perhaps but yes Nora this is what yes Laureles would senior advisor Goldman Sachs I also want to echo the other were Laura Tyson about congratulating the forum on having this happen I agreed this challenge of the double bind you're talking about Cheryl which you can't be nice and respected kind of thing at the assertiveness you know assertive men invade small countries assertive women

48:41 could you want hold on the telephone so if you've got this sort of double bind kind of thing that goes on one of the things that I'm fascinated with though is what Laura was talking about this explosion of research and that the data that are out there and I don't normally quote Donald Rumsfeld but he talked about the known knowns and the known unknowns know known is that which we know and we act upon the known unknowns or that which we know and we don't act upon you know and we have a number of those things and the other thing that strikes me in this is the parallel universe of what men think is happening and what women think is happening yeah because I think Kevin I bet you if you talk to a number of your CEOs how are

49:27 you doing on this issue of women advancement they'd probably say we're doing very well and if you talk to the women in the organization how are you doing in this well we're not really doing very well so I'm wondering how we you know give these parallel universes to align better given all of the information we now know we did a great job Lauren in what I find and I know we've had this discussion before is I have to be careful when you get behind closed doors with executives and CEOs it's about ticking a box and you mentioned in your book you can't have the Noah's Ark version of we have two of these and we have two of these and we're okay in an organization so there is a disconnect because the perception among executives when it comes to diversity is what are you talking about we have a female on the board so we're take the box it's not

50:14 as I mentioned earlier about making the board more effective it's about ticking a box and I think therein lies a huge disconnect and organizations yes the woman who has her hand raised towards yes and what you should believe this that Denmark should probably be on the highest level of but we are not and you know that Christine you know that everyone what I've done last year was then I was tired of listening to all these young women talking about that we are not in the top you know positions in the Danish environment business environment so what I did was after several meetings in the government I could tie it you know talking talking talking so what I did was that I invited

51:01 700 girls aged 14 to 16 and it is called global dignity girls it's a new concept that I've made simply by collecting the most brilliant young women and then we just do road trip around in Denmark all the small cities some be out there for two hours then we talk about how fantastic it is actually to do business and you can be both a mom and be really good at your business at the same time so instead of talking we can actually take your car go out in the cities and start talking to the young girls and we even have a moto motto called don't buy new breasts buy books you know because if you read if you educate yourself don't spend time on silly boys and

51:49 stupid commercials and silly solar operas go and give yourself an education and more importantly bring in the role models that they look up to let them hear their story because mostly they work really hard on their career it's not easy this is not a reality reality show it's about hard work and supporting each other so if everyone of us exit to being a mentee and helped her to show her the way because women we need more support and mentors so that was just my you know go out rock show it still always do it I am unfortunately going to need to wrap up in the interest of time an observation is I've sat in

52:37 many of these rooms see most of the hands go up being male as you have pointed out Cheryl and it's I was as I was scanning who to ask I was looking for some male hands as well so that it could be a diverse slate yes so it's it's many things are changing and and they change when people do they're the difference I will also retain that as a message for us to go forward because when you dare the difference you also open up the conversation and you open up the possibilities to notice what isn't notice and to say what's not said and it's so um I I would have liked to have had the time to ask each of you for your takeaway from the panel but I know that this is an ongoing discussion and

53:23 there's certainly a sense that we're at a point of no turning back sometimes we are slower than we would like to be but it is gathering speed and it's gathering involvement and and so stay tuned because it's it is very much a time of change thank you very much and thank you to our wonderful panelists