Men designed the traditional concept of career success, Arianna Huffington argues, and it’s holding women back.
“It’s not enough for women in any industry to look at breaking through the glass ceiling. We need to actually change workplaces,” Huffington said yesterday during a panel at the eighth annual Women in the World New York Summit. “They are not working for women, they are not working for men, they are not working for polar bears.”
In other words, the leadership disparity between men and women is more than just a women’s problem. Huffington, the founder of the Huffington Post and CEO and founder of Thrive Global, spoke with three other women executives about why it’s everyone’s responsibility to work to close the gap.
For one, diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams. Startups with women leaders deliver more than 60 percent better returns, said Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and co-founder of Ellevest and chair of the Ellevate Network. It’s in the best interests of businesses — and Wall Street — to make their teams less male and white, she said.
As YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki noted, more diversity in tech companies will result in more products and services being accessible to everyone. But so many companies don’t have diverse teams, Krawcheck said, because of the “biases about what leadership looks like.”
Miki Tsusaka, CMO, senior partner and managing director at the Boston Consulting Group,…