Smorgasbord 3/11

Women More Resilient?
A study by Accenture finds that women are more resilient than men - a supposed advantage in turbulent times. The definition of resilience:

"the ability to overcome challenges and turn them into opportunities"

Based on this definition, 71 percent of more than 500 corporate leaders surveyed in 20 countries believed that resilience was a key capability in determining who to retain. Read the Accenture release here.

Good News/Bad News
Women leaders are the new power behind the global economy, proclaims Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu’s announcement of its second annual webcast celebrating International Women’s Day. In developing nations, women’s earned income is growing at 8.1 percent, compared with 5.8 percent for men. Globally, women control nearly $12 trillion of the $18 trillion total overall consumer spending, a figure predicted to rise to $15 trillion by 2014.

So, does this set women up to be the "go to persons" for consumption...or the "go to persons" for organizational leadership to align growth with the market. What do you think?

I LOVE the World Economic Forum
Though the data is depressing, they do an outstanding job of keeping the status of women in the forefront of peoples' minds. Here are some stats from the International Women's Day release:

"The Forum, based in Switzerland, surveyed 600 heads of human resources offices at the largest employers in 20 countries representing 16 different industries.

The findings, which were timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, follow the announcement Friday by the European Union of an initiative aimed at significantly narrowing the union’s average 18 percent gender wage gap, which has changed little in the past 15 years.

A study by the 27-member union last year estimated that closing the wage gap could lead to a potential increase of 15 percent to 45 percent in gross domestic product.

A 2009 report by the International Labor Organization found an average 20 percent difference in pay for men and women employed full time in the Group of 20 largest developed and developing economies. Yet the World Economic Forum’s report found that 72 percent of the companies in its survey had no systems to track salary differences by gender.

In addition, 60 percent of the companies said they had no affirmative action policies to promote women within their hierarchies and did not measure women’s participation in their work forces...the forum’s survey did not assess the status of women working in the public sector or in education, areas where female representation is traditionally high and where policies to promote gender balance are often institutionalized by law.

Women remained in the minority of senior corporate managers, representing just 5 percent of the chief executives of the 600 companies surveyed. Finnish companies in the sample had the largest proportion of female chief executives, with 13 percent, followed closely by Norway and Turkey with 12 percent and Italy and Brazil with 11 percent."

'Tis the Season for Rankings
NAFE has announced its Top 50 Companies for Executive Women. I particularly appreciate their methodology which pays particular attention to the number of women officers, on company boards of directors and in line positions.

Diversity Inc has announced its Top 50 Companies for Diversity. Sodexo (featured earlier on the blog) topped the list and was also noted as ranking first in employment of executive women (although it doesn't appear on the NAFE rankings).

Lead ON!
Susan
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls. She blogs on networking for PINK Magazine. Follow her on Twitter.