Women & The Economy – not a surprise…

“The sexy new discussion in policy circles around the world, thanks to the recession, is whether a significant shift of power from men to women is underway — or whether it should be. Accounting giant Ernst & Young pulled out charts and graphs at a recent power lunch in Washington with female lawmakers to argue a provocative bottom line: Companies with more women in senior management roles make more money.”

This is from an article in the Washington Post (http://tinyurl.com/washpost) talking about a number of studies which have shown a direct connection between company profitability and increased senior management diversity at those companies. This is not going to be a surprise to the many women professionals who have spent their careers trying to break through the “glass ceiling” (the one that we’re told was shattered years ago – when? I must have missed it).

Large numbers of women keep leaving the corporate world to start their own businesses or join smaller entities where they have more control over their work and can lead a more balanced life (don’t say women aren’t risk takers). The current economic and social mess in this country has been caused by the greed and mis-management endemic to the masculine model of competition in business. Co-operation will get you alot further down the road to profitability and success, just look at the results from these studies – “Pepperdine found that the Fortune 500 firms with the best records of putting women at the top were 18 to 69 percent more profitable than the median companies in their industries.”

Susan Rosin
President, Reclipse Group