Video: Diversity on boards – how and why it’s important!
Not sure I like the still frame but... I like the content of the video
It’s time for Tone at the Top on Diversity – or Why Uber is Yet Another Wakeup Call for Boards and CEOs in Tech
Uber is just the latest company caught in the act of discriminating against women in it's workforce. Sadly for many minorities in tech this is an old story. As Ellen Pao writes in today's Time article it is an indication of "tech's existential rot". In a world that "started off seemingly harmlessly by white men funding white men with few exceptions. When only white men were given opportunities, only white men were successful. White men went on hiring only white men, because it seemed to be a common trait of [...]
So you want to join a board: Advice to help you prepare
If you want to join a board, you are not alone. Some people want to find a board in the middle of their career because they like the idea of learning about board life, or for the status of it; some people are looking for board work towards the end of their career because they want to stay engaged and give back. Either way it's a common, serious interest for many people. But what does it take - how do you prepare yourself to be qualified? First off, determine why [...]
Three things you can do to hire women and change your company forever
Posted in the Huffington Post Our world is changing very fast, and the role of women is changing fast with it -- and, mostly, for the positive. We have more women in power, more women in the workforce, more women in control of their lives but there still aren't representative numbers of women at the top of companies. And yet, we now know that diverse teams make better decisions. We know women make 85 percent of consumer buying decisions, and so, if you sell anything to them, you probably want [...]
Why the Debate About Twitter’s Board and Women at the Top in Silicon Valley Is a Healthy One
Posted in the Huffington Post today Is the fact that Twitter has filed for its IPO with no women on the board, and only one (new) woman in management a question of supply or demand? Is it the "arrogance of the Silicon Valley mafia," as Vivek Wadhwa believes, or "difficult" due to a lack of qualified candidates as Twitter insiders have implied, or just competing priorities while managing a rapidly growing company? This is a critical debate, one that has been growing since Lean In was released and a debate [...]
Public companies should report on Diversity to their shareholders
There is enough evidence of the value of diversity on corporate boards now to do something truly visible about it. We deal with Say-on-Pay every year now at the public board level, so why not Report-on-Diversity?Say-on-Pay is a result of the Dodd-Frank Act. It says that the shareholders get to vote on whether they approve executive pay or not. It's non-binding - ie. "advisory" but boards take it very seriously. They have to. Executive pay is a contentious issue, highly paid consulting firms like ISS and Glass-Lewis opine on whether [...]
Women do it Better than Men — Zenger Folkman
The evidence would say so, but perception would differ. I read the new survey by Zenger Folkman "Women do it Better than Men", as featured in the Harvard Business Review last week, covering the differences in leadership between men and women this morning with a heavy heart... The good news is that in 12 of the 16 categories women were ranked higher than men by their peers, their bosses and by their direct reports. And not only on the traditional softer areas like nurturing. "Specifically, at all levels, women are [...]
Diversity helps when you need to recruit the best
Needing to hire the "best and the brightest" is like motherhood and apple pie. No-one can argue with it. And yet it is harder than you'd think for many companies. Great prospective employees can pick and choose and they make their decisions as often on soft issues like who they'd work with/for and what the culture of the company is like as they do on hard issues like project, title and pay.At FirstRain we work hard to create a fun work environment and to be innovative in our culture - [...]