Kelly Chambliss

Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, IBM Consulting

Carolyn Childers

Co-founder and CEO, Chief

Carla Grant-Pickens

Vice President,

Lindsay Kaplan

Co-founder, Chief

Nickle LaMoreaux

Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, IBM

Salima Lin

Senior Partner and Vice President,

Lula Mohanty

Managing Partner, Asia Pacific,

Paul Papas

Senior Vice President,

Kitty Chaney Reed

Joanne Wright

Cindy Anderson

Global Lead for Engagement and Eminence, IBM Institute for Business Value

Carolyn Heller Baird

Global Research Leader,

Authors

A special report from the IBM Institute for Business Value, IBM’s thought leadership think tank, in partnership with Chief.

Design roles at the top that work for top talent

Change the dialogue around gender

Don’t just set strategy, give it teeth

Detangle the messy middle

It’s time for leaders to get serious about achieving gender equity. These four actions can point the way.

Urgency is mounting

Obstacles remain

Enterprise benefits are tangible

Gender equity is not a women’s issue, it’s an organizational one

more CEOs in 2022 rate sustainability as a top priority, compared to 2021.

of CEOs expect sustainability investments to produce improved business results in the next 5 years.

of CEOs identify unclear ROI and economic benefits as a leading challenge.

“If nobody’s demanding accountability, it’s not going to happen because it’s a lot easier to go back to what we know.”

“We get better when we work this way, together. We hear customers better, we hear requirements better, we learn about our gaps better. Do it because it’s good business.”

“Because you are already disadvantaged as it pertains to women, you’ve got to work twice as hard to get more women to come back into the workforce.”

“What are those top-ranked attributes for women to be promoted versus men? The attributes for men are so focused on the individual, and the attributes for women were much more about the broader ecosystem.”

The optimism around gender parity is belied by the facts, which show there aren’t enough women in the middle-management tiers, putting future leadership attainment in peril. At the current rate of change, gender parity remains decades away.

Parity “feels” close, but is getting farther away.

Unconscious biases continue to permeate the workplace, and attributes perceived as critical for leadership remain gendered—men are expected to be results oriented, and women, people oriented.

The most destructive structural barriers are invisible.

Organizations identified as gender equity leaders report 19% higher revenue growth than others in our sample. But overall, not enough companies act as if their continued growth might depend on attracting and retaining top female talent.

The cost of doing nothing is getting more expensive.

Key takeaways

Expecting results More than 80% of CEOs say sustainability investments will drive better business results in the next 5 years.

“When I first started, it was about producing a product and generating a return for investors. Today ESG is absolutely part of everything we do, with heavy emphasis on the ‘E’ of understanding the environmental impact.”

For many women, the demands aren’t always worth the price

The past two years showed that organizations can reinvent how they work

Historic wins at the top are threatened by stagnation in the middle

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