#EachforEqual: Ralph Lauren is, and so am I

About a mile-and-a-half south of Ralph Lauren’s headquarters, thousands took to New York City’s streets more than a century ago to show their support for women’s rights. That rally sowed the seeds of today’s celebration: International Women’s Day. This year’s rallying cry is #EachforEqual, a reminder of our responsibility—and ability—to create a gender-equal world.

Unless something changes, the World Economic Forum forecasts the world won’t see gender parity for another century. Women and non-binary employees—especially those in minority ethnic groups—struggle to earn the same pay, and to receive the same promotions and professional opportunities as their male colleagues.

The fashion industry is no exception, despite being so powerfully shaped for so many decades by women visionaries, employees, and customers. At leading fashion schools, women comprise more than 80 percent of the graduates, yet they go on to hold only 25 percent of senior leadership positions across the fashion industry.

We know this gap isn’t caused by a lack of ambition, talent, or creativity. There is no case for it, and no logic to it. The causes are structural, cultural, and have become deeply engrained over time. It costs the industry money and denies people of the talent, rewards, and recognition they deserve.

Ralph Lauren is #EachforEqual, and I am proudly so, as its CEO. We are a founding member of Parity.org, a non-profit with a sharp purpose: “Equal representation. Now.” Membership entails making the “ParityPledge®” – for every position at a Vice-President level or above, members commit to interview at least one qualified woman candidate.

One of the simplest but most effective ways anyone can support #EachforEqual this International Women’s Day is by taking the ParityPledge® at Parity.org.

It’s been by consistently taking such steps that Ralph Lauren has achieved gender parity across our entire Company at or above the Vice-President level. And just about half of our Executive Leadership Team are women. A few of them are featured in the social campaign we launched today, “The Future Belongs to You.”

“I would love the legacy of this Company to be not only the beautiful products we made, but the way we thought about the world and tried to make it a better place.”

—Ralph Lauren

But supporting gender parity doesn’t stop at representation. It also means providing equal pay for women and men. Beginning in 2017, we partnered with Willis Towers Watson to analyse our U.S. pay, and Ralph and I are proud that at Ralph Lauren, women and men receive equal pay for equal work (that is: the same work, performed at the same level of performance, by people with the same skills and experience). We are committed to expanding this analysis globally by 2022 and have already taken the steps to roll out a worldwide system that harmonizes the data that supports this goal. We also want this commitment to extend beyond the walls of our Company, and to that end, we are working with Parity.org and our peers to land on a single method for calculating equal pay within the entire apparel sector. Together we are setting standards and creating roadmaps to work toward a more equitable industry.

Our focus on diversity and inclusion—of which gender equality is a core component—runs throughout our Company. We have regional diversity and inclusion teams at every level, as well as a Diversity & Inclusion Board. We have expanded our presence at colleges and career fairs with diverse and LGBTQIA+ talent. Last year, we launched trainings on unconscious bias in 19 languages for our global workforce. We’ve brought in external speakers and held employee panels, to inspire and challenge everyone who works for Ralph Lauren, all the way up to our Board of Directors. We’ve got more to do, but our goal is to embed this into every facet of our business. 

We’re also pushing beyond our own Company and striving to improve gender equality across our supply chain. By 2025, we’ve committed to increase female leadership in the factories across our supply chain by 25 percent. This is a bold ambition, and we are working with our strategic suppliers to enable and support women to not only elevate into these roles, but succeed in them. It builds on the work we are doing with organizations like the HER Project, which provides workplace-based programs to empower women in some of the factories where we operate. 

I don’t pretend that we, as a Company, or that I, as a leader, have all the answers. We are transparent about our goals and progress in our annual Global Citizenship and Sustainability Report. We are eager to learn and to do more.

But, on this important day, I feel driven to speak out about gender equality. Fashion is fortunate to have such a strong pipeline of talented women, but we have more work to do to elevate and empower them. If we’re going to make industry-wide progress, leaders have to accept that there is a huge challenge yet to be met, and we need to do even more to prioritize the issue. We are the ones with the ability—and responsibility—to change biased cultures, policies, and practices.

And it’s critical that male leaders demonstrate this commitment through their actions as well as their words. An eye-opening 2018 report called “Shattering the Glass Runway” surveyed more than 500 employees from across the industry. One hundred percent of women believed fashion had an inequality problem; less than 50 percent of men believed the same.

We shouldn’t forget that gender equality is more than the right thing to do; it’s a smart business decision. A study of more than 1,000 companies across 12 countries found that gender-diverse executive teams were likely to outperform non-diverse teams on both profitability and longer-term value creation. My personal leadership experience provides decades of anecdotes in support of that data.

You’ve heard me say before that writing the Next Great Chapter of the Ralph Lauren story starts by recognizing that we’re not writing something new. Instead, we have the privilege of continuing something great. That applies to this topic as well.

Last year, HBO ran a documentary about Ralph’s life (if you haven’t seen “Very Ralph,” I encourage you to do so). In it, the legendary journalist Tina Brown discussed how Ralph, throughout his career, eschewed stereotypes of women: “He understands women, he respects women,” she said. “He celebrates women.” 

That’s why two areas where I haven’t talked about change at Ralph Lauren are our inspiration and our identity. They’re not “changing” because they’re built on ideals that don’t go out of fashion—authenticity, strength, independence, and the ability to create a better life – the life of your dreams. Today, of all days, those values feel both relevant and right. They provide a strong foundation for us to build on our work across diversity and inclusion, especially gender equality. And that is what we are committed to doing.