Reflections International Women's Day 2023

This year’s IWD theme is about Embracing Equity to willingly and enthusiastically accept, adopt, and espouse Equity towards building a more equitable world! 

On International Women’s Day, I choose to support the path toward a world that is fully  diverse, equitable, and inclusive. It's also a day to re-affirm my commitment and think seriously about what I would do to help build an equitable workplace.

I have held  many roles in a long career as a technologist, a business woman and HR. While the companies, context, competencies, industry, teams and leaders changed one thing never did - the gender gap.

And I’ve been fortunate enough to work in companies where leadership and teams were thinking about this challenge and working hard towards closing this gap. They are all putting in effort and finding ways to drive equality and build equitable environments.

It’s 2023… why is there still such a large gap in leadership, at various levels, in different fields across industries ? Are we even making a dent in this challenge?

I had to think about this for a while.

I know there is a very complex set of issues underneath this challenge but the one place my thinking brings me back to is women in leadership.

So here are the 5 things that I commit to -

1. Reviewing leadership panels - wherever I have influence, on executive teams, ELT’s, PLT’s, LT’s in each country, in each function. Putting a plan to get women onto these teams.
2. Understanding what women leaders need to succeed - women are swimming the same laps as men, oftentimes with 10 Kg kettlebells attached to each limb. Think about the backdrop of cultural expectations, commitments outside work (parents, kids, life). This may not be true for all women in all countries, but it's hard to shake this extra off without guilt, pressure and a really deliberate reorganisation of priorities. Someone who has inspired me to think differently about this challenge - Eve Rodsky, author of Fair Play
3. Enable women leaders to succeed. Recognize women for their vision, not just for execution. Women need support (the IWD concept only started in 1911) to become outstanding leaders.  They need networks and sponsors. They also need to learn how to be good allies so they can bring more women onto their teams and into the workforce. Help them get in front of objections (equip them with cogent arguments and effective data).
4. And keep educating myself! Here are some posts that I found helpful.

McKinsey - Women in the workplace report

Micro-sponsorship - a tool to combat micro inequities

Myth busting - 10 myths to bust

5. And finally celebrate and support your ERG's as they become the voice for your employees to drive an amazing, equitable work place. A shout out to the #WIZE ERG at Zscaler who are driving this mission forward. Hear from our team

. #IWD2023 #EmbraceEquity #BeLimitless