Mixing it in March.....

31/03/2010 Mixing it in March… This month the world celebrated International Women's day on 8 March. But Women in Business did not host a women only event to celebrate; instead we networked with another local ...
Mixing it in March!

This month the world celebrated International Women's day on 8 March. But Women in Business did not host a women only event to celebrate; instead we networked with another local business network with more male than female members.

With over a 130 in attendance, we successfully networked with BEN (Belfast Entrepreneurs Network) on 4 March. We will also be holding our Annual Joint Networking event with the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce this Thursday [25 March], another fully subscribed event with over 150 people – men and women – registered.

Each man and woman in business must acknowledge that to do business effectively no one gender can be excluded. How could any business ignore 50% of the population? Does Gillette employ only men? Does Max Factor employ only women?

What of Women in Business you may ask? Well, as a network we work with many men: the business editor of this paper, our landlord, our bank manager, our funding case officer, our events company, the list goes on. And, we have invited our first male onto our Board of Directors.
So, if it is easy to see that we need to work together, why is there not a better balance in the boardrooms of top companies? Why are women still missing out on a fair share of the top jobs among the world's largest companies?
The recent World Economic Forum (WEF) Corporate Gender Gap report criticizes businesses around the world for failing to close the gender gap. Women "remain scarce in senior management positions", the report reveals. This news came as the UK Prime Minister said it was "unacceptable" that there are UK firms without any female board representation and added that if nothing changed "we will need to consider taking more serious action".
I do not believe that the Prime Minister or the WEF are publicising this to please women (although the Prime Minister may be looking for their votes), but because it is now recognised and acknowledged that this mix is needed to help grow stable economies worldwide.
Saadia Zahidi, one of the WEF report's authors said it sounded an "alarm bell" that companies were not doing enough to combat inequality. "While a certain set of companies in Scandinavia, the US and the UK are indeed leaders in integrating women, the idea that most corporations have become gender–balanced or women–friendly is still a myth," she said.

According to Lord Davies, Minister for Trade, Investment and Small Business, Britain would have 750,000 more small firms if women were fully engaged with the business world. Putting female entrepreneurship on a par with that in America would boost the UK economy and employment, said the banker turned politician. And appointing more female directors to the boardrooms of Britain's big companies would inspire more women to start their own businesses.
"We have an issue in Britain in that we don't have enough women starting businesses. We need more female entrepreneurs," Davies said. "A quarter of the large FTSE companies don't have women on their boards. We should change that. It is all about providing role models. We need to showcase women who have done great things."

There are a lot of voices here saying we need to support women and that we need to integrate them into all levels of business.

Women in Business is gender specific but through our activities we are actually delivering for everyone. We are actually helping to deliver for the economy and redress the imbalance by providing women with the skills to network equally, by encouraging and helping them to start or grow their own business, by presenting role models and by mixing the networks!

Women in Business understand that we need to mix on all levels but perhaps not all the time!

Roseann Kelly,
Chief Executive,
Women in Business NI Ltd

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