On this year’s International Women’s Day, I vividly recall the life-changing advice I once received about the delicate balance between career ambition and family.
Could I have a child and still climb the corporate ladder? What if I became pregnant during the interview process?
My former manager at IBM encouraged me to flip the script: What if I first got the promotion and then became pregnant? Would my career advancement come to a grinding halt? No. I would keep forging ahead.
In my 14 years there, IBM consistently justified its usual place at the top of rankings of the best companies for women executives. I was surrounded by strong female role models across the company and worked with men who routinely supported women at all levels of their career.
Regrettably, that is not the case throughout the workforce, where only 5.2 percent of S&P 500 CEOs are women. As Chief Enrollment Officer at the University at Buffalo School of Management, I can say that the business school community is doing its part to effect change. As leaders, we aspire to see the day when rising women’s enrollment in MBA classrooms serves a precursor to greater female leadership in corporate boardrooms. According to the Forté Foundation, women now account for 39 percent of full-time MBA students in the U.S. and 36 percent outside of America. Yet while men receive an average of 2.3 promotions after completing their MBA program, women receive 1.8. Men have an average of 3.3 employees reporting to them, and women have 1.8.
Progress will not occur without action. Just as I proactively sought out advice on work-life balance from my former manager at IBM, business schools need to intentionally brainstorm and execute strategies around women’s empowerment if they wish to play a leading role in creating a more equitable workplace.
This means building campus infrastructure that ensures women are welcome, valued and heard. It also involves placing the priority of countering gender and diversity inequity at the forefront of the business school mission. Some specific steps could include:
