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Women in business

Building a blueprint for action

Women in business: building a blueprint for action

This year marks a shift in our reporting on gender diversity in senior management. Beyond publishing the figures and discussing associated recommendations, in 2019 we’re taking a step forward in outlining the conscious and deliberate action businesses can take – practical steps to increase the number of women in senior management, across all job roles, industries and regions.

As leaders of the world’s dynamic businesses, you hold the power to drive change. The last 12 months have seen positive progress, but few of us, Grant Thornton included, can put up our hands and say we are winning at gender diversity; that business culture, recruitment policies and staff retention schemes have created gender parity at senior level. “We know this, because for 15 years we’ve crunched the global business numbers on thousands of businesses around the world,” says Francesca Lagerberg, Grant Thornton International’s global leader - network capabilities.

“At the beginning of 2018, we looked at what we had achieved in this space. We, like many other organisations, had just not progressed far enough,” recognises Kim Schmidt, global leader - leadership, people and culture at Grant Thornton International. “We saw that we were a perfect mirror reflection of what was happening in the external market.”