CEOs need to do more to promote women to upper levels - EY boss

Ernst and Young global vice chairwoman for public policy says Beth Brooke told TVNZ’s Q+A programme that CEOs need to be doing more to promote women into upper levels of management and on to boards.

“That means people aren’t looking deep enough because the pipeline is there, the talent is there. It’s almost like you need a diverse slate for every open board position to force everyone to look harder, to make sure the best qualified person gets the job, but it’s gotta be a diverse slate, which means the invisible will become visible, and over time they’ll get the roles," Ms Brooke said.

"The other thing that’s important, I think, is for male CEOs in their company to look at their senior female leadership talent and say, ‘Who do I think among my organisation, among my senior executive levels should serve on another company’s board? Wouldn’t it be a great experience?’ And then sponsor that woman on to somebody else’s board. That breaks the cycle of the network of ‘it’s the good old’ whatever network that gets boards appointed. Break into it. Have male CEOs sponsor one of their senior executive women to be on somebody else’s board. That’s a good lever.”

Beth Brooke, who has been named five times to the list of Forbes “World’s Most Powerful Women”, says in many companies women are being hired in equal proportions but they only get as far as the mid-levels of management.

“Research shows that women at that mid-level tend to get promoted based on performance, and men tend to get promoted based on potential. So people look at the men and say, ‘We think he can do that next job. We’re going to promote him.’ They look at a women and go, ‘She’s never done that next job. I don’t think she’s qualified enough.’ And so at that mid-level it really starts to diverge.”

Beth Brooke says blame lies both with employers and with women.

“It’s actually both, I think. It is the employer’s fault for how they evaluate men and women. They don’t understand they have unconscious bias around that issue. How they’re looking at the men carries an unconscious bias to think they can do the job and they carry an unconscious bias around women to think, ‘I haven’t seen her do it, so she can’t do it’. It also comes from women tending to go, ‘That job requires me to do A, B, C, D and E, and I only know how to do A, B, C and D, therefore I’m not qualified.’ Whereas men would go, ‘I know how to do A and B. I’ll figure the rest out.’”

Beth Brooke says having both male and female perspectives being brought to the table means better outcomes.

“I think, the key to unlocking this is to get people to experience that difference. I just had someone here in New Zealand telling me that he had two women put on to his board this year, and he witnessed the different discussion that is going on around decision making. Better decisions being made because different perspectives are being brought to bear.”