Women in Business Turning Promise into Practice

The gender diversity issue has been on the business agenda for many years now, yet a third of businesses still have no women at a senior management level. Somewhere there is a disconnect.

The business case for gender diversity among business leadership teams is established. It reduces the risk of ‘group-think’ and opens new opportunities for growth. Diversity improves the bottom line: research Grant Thornton conducted shows that listed companies with male-only boards in the UK, US and India alone are foregoing potential profits of $655bn.

Yet despite overwhelming evidence of the benefits of gender diversity in leadership we have made little progress.  Globally the level of women in senior roles has risen just 3% in the past five years, to stand at 24%. We have also seen the proportion of businesses without any women in senior management remain static over the past five years at around 33%. That means a third of companies still have no female input into executive decisions and no women helping grow the business at a leadership level.

Read the full story: http://www.grantthornton.global/en/insights/articles/women-in-business-2016/