Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Why Women Mean Business


Just when I thought the GFC (global financial crisis) would put women's issues on the back burner, there has been a major ground swell on the impact that woman have on the bottom line.

In their latest book, Why Women Mean Business, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland put forward a very credible case that having women in senior roles actually increases the profitablity of organisations. It's now longer a women's issue - it's now a business issue as to why women should have more say in business.

A study by Catalyst Research of the Fortune 500 companies in 2007 found that companies with the highest proportion of women in their senior teams significantly outperform those with the lowest proportion on both return on equity which was 35.1% higher, and total shareholder return at 34% higher.

Now that sounds like a sound business case to me.