24 Insights from the 2019 Women’s Leadership Conference

“My best successes came on the heels of failures.”

Barbara Corcoran, founder of The Corcoran Group and Shark investor on ABC’s “Shark Tank”

Standing up, Being Counted: Leaders Driving Change and Measuring Results

Both organizations and individual women can further gender equality and bring more females into senior leadership, the C-suite, and boardrooms. Organizations should put a diversity and inclusion (D&I) lens across everything they do to elevate women, involve men in the conversation, have leadership development programs that give women the right work experiences, offer benefits and policies to help growing families, and encourage girls to study STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Individual women need to be lifelong learners, take lateral moves to fill out their resumes, share their stories, and not let a lack of confidence prevent them from trying something new.

When 148 practitioners and experts met to discuss women’s leadership, we took notes. Here are the highlights:

Companies can make an effort across the entire HR spectrum to help move women forward.

Approach everything the organization does from a D&I perspective. Build it into hiring practices, leadership development programs, benefits, and any content the organization creates. For example, one entertainment company looks at how D&I is portrayed in its movies and television shows. Also hold leaders accountable. The same entertainment company links leaders’ compensation to D&I.
Require diverse candidate slates for each job posting and don’t proceed with interviews until the requirements are met. Contact external recruiters if needed. Also make sure women feel included during campus recruiting. One investment bank places female ambassadors at the colleges and universities where it recruits the most since female students want to hear from other young women.
Think about what your organization is doing today to give women and people of