A week ago I was a speaker at Haven Hill inaugural conference on equality. Frankly, it was one of the most important and inspiring events I have attended in memory. Founder Ashley Bernhard summed it up, “ Our mission is to advocate for gender equality through the lens of data and solutions. By leaving emotions out of the conversation we are able to focus on the business at hand ~ when businesses invest in women, everything goes up ~ revenue, customer satisfaction, employee retention etc. When executives in decision-making seats see gender equality this way, they realize that investing in women isn’t just the right thing to do but the smart thing to do.”
The whole conference was filled with brilliant speakers like Alli McCartney, Managing Director UBS Private Wealth Management who talked about how we could enhance the Wall Street model by elevating women. And Dr. Jeanne Zaino, Senior Advisor AppliedTechonomics shared several data points on the significant results businesses achieve through women leadership. The opening keynote Yann Borgstedt founder of The Womanity Foundation said, “Millennials want companies that have values, and values are also about diversity.” There were many more riveting speakers … my message, which most of you know, is we only have 24 Fortune 500 Women CEOs and need as a goal to get to 50 — which is still really low but at least provides the critical mass of mentors for us to grow to equality, and that having more women CEOs is singlehandedly the most powerful action we can take to grow our economy.