Advancing Women Worldwide

Here’s a good reminder for International Women’s Day: study after study shows that a critical mass of female leaders at all levels, across an organization, drives revenue and creates a distinct competitive advantage. Yet the stats remain stark. Women make up about half the population but less than one-quarter of senior leadership roles worldwide. There are 24 women leading Fortune 500 companies today, and only 22 percent of the directors at the nation’s largest 100 publicly-traded firms are women.

In order to get more women in leadership roles, experts say organizations, managers and individual women need to make a joint effort. They also point out that there is plenty of potential talent to develop: women represent about 60 percent of university-educated talent in North America, Europe, and many other places around the world.

As part of the effort, Korn Ferry recently announced that it joined The Rockefeller Foundation’s “100x25” campaign, a multifaceted effort uniting organizations to help achieve the goal of advancing 100 women to the top role at Fortune 500 companies by 2025. The firm also produced a webinar series “Advancing Women Worldwide,” detailing the shared responsibility approach: what organizations can do, what managers can do, and what women can do.

Part 1: What organizations can do.

Part 2: What managers can do.

Part 3: What individual women can do.