In this session, Gwen Young, COO of WBC, met with our newest host, Linda Peek Schacht, on January 13th at 12pm EST Gwen introduced Linda as she joins the LinkedIn Live series to host two sessions per month. In addition, Gwen and Linda gave an overview of what to expect for this series over the next year, and how each of the themes and issues covered fit into WBC’s overall mission of equal pay, position, and power for all businesswomen.

Watch the recording on Linkedin here, or below!

The post #WBCFasterTogether: Leading the Trends in 2022 appeared first on Women Business Collaborative.

Written by Brittany Cole on behalf of the WBC Ally of Her team

Allyship is a critical success factor to achieve equal position, pay and power for all women in business. In the Deloitte 2019 State of Inclusion Survey, allyship was noted as “a missing link for organizations to take the next step in truly embedding inclusion into the everyday experiences of their people.”

Today, we know that many organizations have made strong commitments to advancing gender equity and research shows that allyship is a practice that can help sustain progress in the recruitment, retention, and leadership representation of women in business. Allies play a pivotal role in shifting mindsets, challenging behaviors, and fostering an inclusive culture that makes equitable outcomes possible.

What is an ally?

An ally is recognized by a community as someone that is engaged in learning, advocating, and sharing their power to take action to advance the inclusion and equity of that community. 

Being an ally requires the self-awareness to identify our place of privilege and power in order to use it to advocate for those with less. 

Everyone has the ability to be an ally, and since privilege is intersectional, men can be allies to women, white women can be allies to women of color, able-bodied women can be allies to those with different abilities, cis women can be allies to members of the LGBTQIA+ community, etc.

Allyship is a lifelong process that requires both awareness and action. Allyship is a journey of learning, un-learning, and re-learning as we contribute to advancing all women in business.

Through our WBC, Ally of Her initiative, we have an opportunity to engage and learn about ways that men, who are allies to the work of the WBC, are making an impact in the advancement of women business leaders at their organization.

Allyship is critical for each of our 9 WBC Action Initiatives to advance executive women leaders in business, the representation of women in business, and equity for all women in business.

Here are some actions of A.L.L.I.E.S. that you can implement to advance the leadership representation, inclusion, and equity for women in business:

A – Awareness:  Emotional intelligence is critical for allyship. Unconscious bias is a barrier to equity that can be improved through awareness and behavior change. We all have biases. Challenge yourself to make your unconscious bias, conscious. “Why do I think that” is a great question to be more self-aware when thoughts enter your mind about other people. 

L – Learning: There is a plethora of accessible information on ways to advance gender equity. As an ally of her, be proactive with your learning journey. It’s great to listen and ask questions, but do this as you are also doing your own research on ways to remain engaged in this work. 

L – Listening: Actively listen to understand the experiences of all women in business. Suppress the urge to make assumptions or counter with your experiences or justifications. Listen to what women are saying and to what isn’t being said. Listen more than you speak and be intentional about adding your voice with – not in place of – all women as an advocate for change.

I – Inclusion: Diversity is a fact. Inclusion is an act. Equity is in the stats. How are you intentional in your effort to incorporate difference? As leaders, having diversity in your organization is a pit stop along the journey towards equity. Diversity (difference) is all around us. Even if your organization needs to attract more diversity, the real question is, how are you cultivating a culture of inclusion where everyone believes they belong, so you retain the diverse leaders you want to attract. 

E – Experiences: Consider your professional and even personal experiences with women from an intersectional lens. How intentional are you in understanding the breadth and depth of needs, experiences, and challenges women face to advance in their careers and business? 

S – Sponsorship: Use your power and privilege to go beyond mentoring women. Sponsorship allows you the opportunity to connect your performance and relationship capital with a woman in business to accelerate her leadership trajectory and improve the inclusion and equity at your organization. How do you speak up, invest in, and create opportunities for women to achieve equal pay, position, and power?

This is allyship in action.

Awareness, learning, listening, inclusion, experiences, and sponsorship are the actions of allies that will create meaningful change in our corporations, non-profits, small businesses, and even our government.  

Your awareness and action are necessary. 

Every day we have an opportunity to practice allyship. 

Every experience is an opportunity for continuous improvement towards gender equity.

Become an ally of her today and let’s work together – as men and women leaders – to advance all women in business.

Join us on January 12th at 11am for our first event: Ally of Her With PNC Bank and the Forté Foundation. Register here!

The post Allyship is Required to Advance All Women in Business appeared first on Women Business Collaborative.

We are excited to have hosted our first WBC Ally of Her With event on January 12th, 2022 with special guests from PNC Bank and the Forté Foundation.

Joshua Stewart, Senior Vice President, Director of Talent Solutions, Outreach & Accessibility at PNC Bank, and Scott Brownlee, Program Manager at the Forté Foundation discussed the importance and impact of allyship initiatives to achieving gender equity in business. This special conversation was facilitated by the Ally of Her Team Members: Gwen Young, COO of WBC; Patricia Glaser Shea, Partner, Shea Advisory Services, LLC; Brittany Cole, CEO, Career Thrivers; and Gavriella Schuster, Founding Sponsor, Women in Cloud & Women in Technology Network.

Ally of Her is a WBC initiative to:

• Engage and recognize more fully the men who are committed to the work in the WBC and have made the advancement of women a priority during their careers.
• Recruit more men to the WBC and introduce our work on 9 action items.
• Introduce the concept of Allies to others and provide information on how to be an Ally
  or start an Ally corporate program.
• Provide best practices and create better leaders.

Missed the live event? Watch the recording below!

The post WBC Ally of Her With PNC Bank and the Forté Foundation appeared first on Women Business Collaborative.

Nonprofit Collaborative Grows Participation by More than 200% Since its Founding; Remains Committed to Accelerating Progress Across Nine Key Action Initiatives

Published via PR Newswire and Yahoo Finance on December 14th, 2021

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Women Business Collaborative (WBC) has established itself as the leading collaborative and high-growth movement committed to achieving equal position, pay and power for all women in business. Founded in 2019, the nonprofit alliance of business organizations and leaders has grown to include more than 60+ women’s organizations, 40 corporate sponsors and 400+ Council Champions.

WBC’s vast network of business organizations and leaders are focused on achieving long-term results around Nine Action Initiatives, including: more women CEOs, in the C-Suite and on Boards; a demand for gender and pay parity; increasing capital for women entrepreneurs; driving more women as controllers of capital allocation; parity for women in technology; and leveraging learning and development to drive pipeline promotions. With diversity, equity and inclusion at of the core of the collaborative’s mission, every WBC Initiative has a goal to advance diversity.

Since WBC’s founding, the number of collaborating women’s business organizations has grown from 19 to 62 and corporate sponsorship has grown from five to nearly 40 top companies. Supporters include Diversified Search Group, Wells Fargo, Capital One, IBM, Bank of America, BCG, Cigna, and Deloitte. WBC’s flagship Summit hosted a record 3,600 participants this past September.

“We’re incredibly thankful for the passion and commitment that each of our partners and champions offer to this critical movement,” said Edie Fraser, CEO of WBC. “While Boards have seen a sea change and there’s been a major surge of women-owned and minority-owned businesses seeking capital, there is still much more to be done to accelerate gender parity for women. We project further acceleration in 2022.”

In 2021 the WBC with Catalyst, C200 and Ascend released the 2^nd annual Women CEOs in America Report.   According to the report, women comprise 8.2% of the Fortune 500 companies and are about 7% of CEOs across public and private companies. WBC monthly Women Joining Public Boards report shows an average of 42% women being named to public boards and one third of these women of color.

Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @WBCollaborative, Instagram @womenbusinesscollaborative and join the discussion with #WBCFasterTogether.

The post WBC Reports Major 2021 Progress Toward Gender Parity for Business Women appeared first on Women Business Collaborative.

Gwen Young, WBC COO, and Edie Fraser, WBC CEO, hosted the final #WBCFasterTogether session of 2021 on December 16th, 2021! Gwen and Edie summarized the progress and achievements of the WBC from the past year, while previewing what’s to come in 2022 for the women’s business movement.

Watch the recording on LinkedIn or below on Youtube!

The post WBCFasterTogether Series: Building the Movement – 2021 and Beyond appeared first on Women Business Collaborative.

The post Localizing a Global D&I Strategy: Gender appeared first on Women Business Collaborative.

This release was published on PRNewswire on Sep 20, 2021, 08:16 ET

Among the Summit’s Featured Speakers are CEOs from GM, Walmart, P&G, BlackRock, State Street, Dow, Progressive, Siemens, PepsiCo, IBM, Humana, Sodexo, CVS, TIAA, and others

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Women Business Collaborative (WBC) – the fastest growing alliance of top business organizations driving impact to create equality for women in business — will convene more than 3,000 participants, including CEOs, thought leaders and the workforce-at-large, at its third Annual Summit  “Empowering Through Gender Equity and Diversity,” taking place virtually, September 21-22, 2021.

With 8.4% of Fortune 500 CEO positions currently held by women – up from 5.7% in 2019, women appear to be on the rise in Corporate America.  Committed to accelerating the progress to include more women across all leadership roles, the WBC Annual Summit brings together the organizations, companies and leaders that are working tirelessly to create cultures of diversity, equity and inclusion across every industry and area of business.

Key data points and best practices for how these leading organizations are taking action will be shared and highlighted throughout the Summit.

“We are crystal clear that all are no longer just talking, but now collaborating on building pathways and nontraditional ways of accelerating women business leaders,” said Edie Fraser, CEO of WBC. “Over the next several days, we will hear from trailblazers in DEI, work to better understand the intersectionality of diversity and discuss how to continually advance the WBC’s Nine Action Initiatives to create equal position, pay and power for all businesswomen.”

In addition to the day and half of engaging discussions, WBC will recognize and highlight achievements in diversity throughout the program. WBC’s 2021 Excellence in Gender and Diversity CEO Award recognizes top officials in major companies for their efforts to diversify their companies and increase opportunities for women in business roles. The 2021 awardees include: Mary T. Barra, Chair and CEO, General Motors; David Taylor, Chairman, President & CEO, P&G; Ronald P. O’Hanley, Chairman and CEO, State Street Corporation; Doug McMillon, President & CEO, Walmart, Inc.; Jim Fitterling, Chairman and CEO, Dow; Laurence D. Fink, Founder, Chairman and CEO, BlackRock, Inc.; Tricia Griffith, President & CEO, Progressive Insurance; and Barbara Humpton, President and CEO, Siemens Corporation.

The full Summit program, agenda, list of speakers, session descriptions and information on how to register for the event can be found here: WBC’s Virtual Annual Summit: Empowering Through Gender Equity and Diversity.  Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @WBCollaborative, on Instagram @womenbusinesscollaborative and join the discussion with #WBCFasterTogether.

The post Women Business Collaborative (WBC) 3rd Annual Summit to Convene Leading CEOs and Business Organizations to Accelerate Gender Equity Across the Global Workforce, September 21-22, 2021 appeared first on Women Business Collaborative.

Whether your goal is to promote women into the C-Suite, a woman as your company’s next CEO, to diversify your board of directors, or to help women into their first leadership job – your goals cannot be achieved if you don’t accelerate female talent, especially women of color, from the start of their career and through the leadership pipeline. To check out WBC’s own Resources for Parity Guide covering six categories of services, click here!

The post Resources For Parity Guide appeared first on Women Business Collaborative.

The topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) is complex, and it has many facets. It’s important for organizations to leverage the multiple identities of employees who devote time and energy driving results within an organization. We know that diverse and inclusive organizations are high performing and more agile. In fact, the Women in the Workplace study by McKinsey finds that gender diverse companies are 15% more likely to outperform their respective national industry medians. This allows everyone to see new opportunities with diverse perspectives and bring new ideas to the table that help grow business that otherwise would not be present. Organizations like the Women Business Collaborative (WBC) are accelerating progress towards gender parity, with acute focus on women of color and DE&I goals and initiatives.

Without question, 2020 was a challenging year for everyone. The pandemic, along with social and civil unrest and targeted violence against the Asian American community has brought the dynamics of racial inequality to the forefront of our attention. These inequalities play out in both large and small ways in our daily lives, and they intersect at race, gender, sexual orientation, and many other factors.  Based on what is happening with DE&I in our country and communities – diversity engagement, satisfaction, and retention have been national concerns at all levels of organizations. We are living in different and difficult times.

During my formal college education, I studied human development, psychology, and counseling. One central focus of my studies was around human behavior. I researched how humans behave in certain situations in environments and the impact of those situations on outcomes. That extensive educational background set up my discovery around diversity over the past 20 years in corporate America. As a WBC Advisory Council Champion, I’ve been able to continue applying this interest and collaborating with others in the field, so we reach our shared goals.

DE&I can mean different things and must be treated differently when developing strategy in the workplace.  There is now a sense of urgency in many organizations to launch or fully capitalize on DE&I efforts to drive its value equation. Organizations want to ensure that their bottom-line results show and reflect the comprehensiveness and integration of diversity in their overall strategy. Sometimes this comprehensive effort poses challenges of how to get started or refreshed.

With our changing demographics, diverse employees come from a wide range of backgrounds and pursue a variety of career goals. What benefits a diverse employee from one background may not benefit an employee from another background. Organizations must be prepared to address these rapid changes in backgrounds and needs. Increasing our knowledge and understanding about the history of race and gender in the workplace can lead to greater awareness, appreciation, and, hopefully, enhanced behavior in action towards the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in organizations.

One area for leveraging best practices in the workplace is intersectionality. Most organizations have not leveraged intersectionality to bridge the gap with diverse employees, especially race and gender. Most programs continue to isolate employee’s diversity dimensions rather than integrate them seamlessly into the organizational culture. We define intersectionality as the acknowledgment that our social identities overlap and intersect to form new, more specific identities. In addition, intersectionality is defined as the ability to engage and value the full range of diversity dimensions–primary dimensions and secondary dimensions for success.

I believe intersectionality is connected to “Mattering”. How a person matters in the workplace is important. Mattering means that an individual contributes in a unique way, feels that they can make a difference, and is contributing to the greater good of the organization–I am seen, acknowledged for my talents, and appreciated. Multicultural talent and women at all levels want to matter. The statistics are staggering: women of color make up 18 percent of entry level jobs, 12 percentage points lower than white women; and for every 100 entry-level men who are promoted to manager, 68 Latinas and 58 Black women are promoted. We need to do better for all women and this starts with organizational change.

In 2020, Cerner launched eight Associate Business Resource Groups to ensure we bring central focus on intersectionality. Two signature groups to help us advance this work enterprise-wide are the Women in Action and MOSAIC African American groups.  These groups educate, inspire and empower through mentoring, networking and community engagement events and help attract and retain top minority and women talent. In 2020, we conducted an analysis to look at our progress on balancing workforce representation across the last three years and includes reviewing data leveraging the intersectionality lens of our associates.  We will continue to systematically review all talent processes across the talent lifecycle from recruitment to exit to detect and proactively address any structural inequality. By leveraging diversity in the workplace, more organizations are creating breakthrough innovative efforts that will last a lifetime.

I am so honored to be a part of the WBC movement because it enables us to leverage a national coalition of women leaders and allies to advance the important work of gender equity.  We (the collaborative) need to make this country a better place to live and work for women and minorities.  We have a greater responsibility to make a difference and WBC is poised and already making a major difference in so many ways.

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Why is there a gender imbalance in the technology industry? Based on recent research, the ratio of men to women is roughly 70% to 30%, respectfully. And, as we continue to further explore these statistics, we learn that the representation of women of color is less than 10%, with Black women only representing 3%. As I reflect on this, it brings to the forefront several questions for consideration. Are women of color aware of the job opportunities in this field?  Are there enough supportive systems in place for these women to succeed?  Are they being given equal opportunities for career advancement, and pay equity?  I invite you to think about the possible answers to these questions when poised from the vantage point of a Black woman working in the tech industry.

As a retired technology executive, and a Black woman, I certainly have my perspectives on this topic and a few answers to these questions. Some of my perspectives are a result of my personal experiences, and others are from countless conversations I have had with other Black women in this field. There is absolutely a direct correlation between these women’s success and the workplace environment.

During a research study conducted by Information Technology Senior Management Forum (ITSMF), Accenture, and North Carolina Central University, ITSMF learned that Black women were very aware of career paths in technology at early stages in their academic life. However, when they entered the workforce, they often found the environment at many companies lacked gender and ethnic balance. There were seldom people of color, let alone Black women, in C-Suite positions, and they often felt there were “unwritten rules” that impacted their career progression. In their workplace, the women experienced a lack of sponsorship, industry bias, a lack of exposure, toxic company cultures, and a lack of opportunities to advance. As a result, it highlighted a correlation between their negative experiences in the workplace and the individual’s ability to advance, as well as the company’s inability to retain their Black female technology professionals.

Utilizing this knowledge, ITSMF designed a comprehensive development program called Emerge for mid- and executive-level women of color to support their career progression as authentic, driven, knowledgeable, and conscious leaders. The Emerge program was not only designed to help these women grow professionally, but also to lead them on a path of discovery and direction through a Seek (who I am), Study (what I know), and Soar (who I become) curriculum. Eighty-five percent of the participants have received a promotion or increase in job responsibilities within a year to eighteen-months of graduation.

As a board member of the Women’s Business Collaborative, an unprecedented alliance of 44+ women’s business organizations collaborating to achieve equal position, pay, and power for all businesswomen, I co-chair the Women in Technology Action Initiative. Our goals are to decrease the female quit rate in the technology sector by 50% in 2030; have women constitute 35% of all leadership positions in technology by 2025 – with women of color making up 15% of that 35%; and increase the representation of women in C-Suite technology positions by 3% by 2025, with at least 4% of the positions held by women of color.

Based on my experiences and work with Fortune 1000 companies, I believe this is achievable if  companies are committed to creating a workplace that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive for Black women, and consider implementing the following actions:

• Assign a sponsor to monitor the woman’s career progression, ensure pay equity, and to be her advocate and “voice” in the room where career advancement decisions and assignments are being discussed.
• Identify executive/leadership development programs that are designed for women of color – like ITSMF – and enroll the women in these programs to position them for success.
• Identify mentors who are internal to the company and can assist with career navigation.
• Identify external mentors and places for her to network with people who are Black and can share their learnings in a safe, secure setting, while providing her with invaluable insights.
• Eliminate any inequities that exist:
• Ensure her title is the same as her peers
• Align her compensation with her peers
• Identify and address the “roadblocks” that exist as she navigates her career path
• Educate your employees, especially those who are in influential positions, to the inequities that exist, and about the cultural and gender biases that your employees of color are experiencing.

“You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering, and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.”

I was moved by this quote because it was said by Shirley Chisolm, the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress.  She was a trailblazer and an iconic leader, and I can only imagine how challenging it was for her to achieve that goal in the late 60’s.  As we honor leaders, like Congresswoman Chisolm, during Black History Month, we must also continue to create pathways for others.  That is why, as a Black woman who has had a highly successful technology career, I am compelled to encourage people to move away from the sidelines and move to the front.  It is time for us to create a new vision for how we will work together, write a new narrative about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and implement changes that will “level the playing field” in corporate America. Be the change, own the vision, and watch to see what will emerge!

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