PWA Milan: Newsletter 2008 - Women on Boards

WOMEN ON BOARDS

On the 21st of May 2008, PWA hosted what I would call the event of the year if not one of the landmark events in the history of PWA Milan. There were over 150 registered participants. The event was attended by men and women alike from multinationals to government institutions, from CEO’s to HR directors bringing with them a rich network to serve a common purpose – to raise the visibility of women in the professional environment. The event was a presentation of key findings on women on boards in Europe with a specific focus on Italy. Interventions on this theme were made by Italian female board members Rosanna D’Antona, Maria Pierdicchi, Stefania Celsi who shared their ideas and best practices. The debate was monitored by our very own PWA Milan president, Monica Pesce of Valdani Vicari & Associati.

What are the main factors to reach a CEO position?

VISIBILITY:

Importance of selecting the right company – our panel speakers Gigante and Pierdicchi preferred to work in a US Company since American companies’ tend to evaluate and promote people based on merit instead of age, loyalty to the company, relationships.
Be involved in projects that are also visible to the CEO
Improve women’s image in the media (Il Mondo named Emma Marcegaglia as Mr Marcegaglia which is unacceptable)
Head-hunters should promote women’s CV’s
Get yourself on Google
Spend 5% of your time to show others what you have done – “do something, do it well, and let others know”

NETWORKING: Very important but tends to be male dominated so women associations are essential. Focus also on relationships with ex-colleagues, external partners and clients – these tend to recommend!

COMPETENCIES: Without competencies you don’t go anywhere. You must maintain and increase them. This includes managerial skills (executive courses specific for women) and Negotiation.

Food for thought: Men communicate and then do; Women do and maybe they communicate

How can we improve the “Pipeline” to get women in managerial positions in order to be better placed for CEO positions?

Introduce measures and Monitor. At Accenture the pipeline is monitored after 3 years of the employee cycle.
Assign the right project, sponsor and client to women at the critical age of 30.
Train men to work with diverse teams. Assign performance indicators to reward men (who tend to be the managers), who cultivate promotion of women. Measure this progress and know why women drop out if this is the case.
Training but also specific managerial course for women. At S&P, high potential women are selected to go on specific training to then cover top positions.
This action must be top down, so the CEO must be involved, other managers and the shareholders. The question is how? The panel suggest women should ask
The company must respect the life stages and promote a work life balance. This can be done through role models and ensuring that women will have their position when they return and are supported to get back into it.

Food for thought: Be aware of your potential and know what you want

Is the problem that women are just not ambitious in Italy?
Unfortunately in Italy women are not taught to be ambitious. In a matriarchal society, we are trained at an early age to look good and not talk back. It is up to us to change that.

We shouldn’t give up after having children.

Our leadership style does not have to be like that of men.

Should Quotas be introduced?
The general answer is no although in a country like Italy, maybe it’s the only way. Given that there are insufficient women in the pipeline who could then go onto CEO positions, introducing quotas would be counter productive. An increase therefore should be done through targets – increasing board members by 2 for example.

A regulation could be introduced to limit appointments to the board so that more posts are opened up.

Women profiles should be promoted through executive search and media, to public institutions and Confindustria.