It was clear from the conversations inside the packed room at the Equality Lounge during ...
It was clear from the conversations inside the packed room at the Equality Lounge during day one of Davos that gender diversity isn’t just on the minds of Davos attendees this year, but is actually reshaping how leaders are running their companies. The day addressed everything from how to create cultures of care and achieve the UN’s global goals, to rewriting the rules of capitalism and using technology to build more inclusive communities.
The research shows that it’s not just women who benefit from inclusivity—when you lift women up, everyone benefits. The findings in our Return on Equality study, that we produced in partnership with Catalyst, supports the messages we heard today, including the fact that a 1% increase in a workforce’s gender and ethnic diversity yields a respective 3% and 9% increase in sales. We also found that a company’s innovation revenue increases when the proportion of its female managers rises above 20%.
The numbers may speak for themselves, but the inspirational stories we heard from the day’s panelists hammered this home. For some, like Lauren Leader Chivee, the founder of All In Together, female empowerment has been a lifelong mission. And for others, a quote from will.i.am might sum it up the best: “Who am I to empower women? They already have power.”
