10 women leaders share how they work and thrive

Lynne Martin, NYSE Group: You're not scalable. It took me a minute to figure out what that meant.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Welcome to Meet the Leader, a podcast where top leaders share how they're tackling the world's toughest challenges. In today's special compilation episode, women leaders share the tips, advice, and workplace changes that will help women thrive.

Subscribe to Meet the Leader on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your favourite podcasts. And please take a moment to rate and review us. I'm Linda Lacina from the World Economic Forum. And this is Meet the Leader.

Becky Frankiewicz, Manpower Group: I wasn't showing up as my best self. And with limited time prioritizing people, if you're not showing up as your best self, you're letting yourself and your people down.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Our recent Gender Gap Report was released this June. It has some sobering news. The global gender gap won't be closed for another 131 years. That gap measures parity or equality with men across things like the economy, politics, health, and education. And that gap is nearly unchanged since last year.

A host of challenges from the pandemic to economic and geopolitical crises have slowed progress around the world for the gender gap. And as our report explains, more work is urgently needed.

And while big structural changes will be key to boost things like political and economic participation, there are steps that businesses and individuals can take, too.

At Meet the Leader, I have the pleasure of talking to a range of leaders about how to tackle stubborn problems like this. And in this week's episode, interviews myself and my colleagues conducted at events like the Annual Meeting in Davos and the Growth Summit in Geneva, leaders share some of the unique policies and programs they've driven to help build a pipeline for women in leadership and other roles.

And women also shared the strategies that they have personally used. Ones that have helped them get their ideas heard and lead in only the way they can. In other words, they shared the tips that help them thrive.

We'll get started with Ashley Dartnell. She's the Global Senior Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Boston Consulting Group, and she kicks us off with a grounding in why the workplace can be challenging for any group, including women, but also a strategy that has worked in the political arena and the impact that it's had.

Ashley Dartnell, BCG: You know, the work environment is not a particularly inclusive environment for women and diversity groups. It's particularly not an inclusive environment for, women and diversity groups in the political arena. I mean, they are, not only are they blasted within their own parliaments and cabinets and political organizations, but they've got the entire audience of social media, the world, et cetera.

And so it's the definition of an unsafe, a psychologically unsafe, and in at times physically unsafe. You know, look at all of the instances where people are attacked and harmed. And so, I think that it's very difficult for anybody to go into politics and to make progress there, never mind women.

However, certain countries and, have made progress by putting in quotas. And, as we know from numerous examples in India, that quota system has dramatically changed the structure of families, of villages, of government. And so I think that there is something to be said for getting more women and also, and I think this is just dramatically important, getting more diversity groups into government. Regardless of which country you're in, we need to have better representation across diversity groups.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: We also talked to Jane Sun. She's the CEO at global travel service provider Trip.com. She has designed some unique policies and programs that recruit women into leadership positions and even help boost retention. All to stymie some of the classic problems that make women leave the workplace.

Here's Jane.

Jane Sun, Trip.com: We are very proactive in promoting the female leadership in our company. So we adopted lots of policies. For example, when females are pregnant, we offer free taxi to bring them to work and take them home.

When the baby is born, we give them 800 RMB as a welcome gift and 3000 RMB as education fee. When the females come back to work, we offer a nice nursing room for them and flexible working hours to support them.

And young females, if they want to use high technologies to have their eggs frozen, to enlength, the period between when they get the degree and also, when they can, at 35 years old when the doctor classified their pregnancy as high risks, we will promote that, and we'll support it.

So as a result, more than 50% of the workforce are females. More than 40% of the middle managers are females. And more than one-third of the executives are females. So, we are very proud of the policies we're adopting, and we are continuously with our efforts to promote female leadership.

By doing so, more and more females can really build a career, build a family, and have children without having to struggle to make a very difficult choice. And it's very good with our recruiting and very good with retaining the talents for female leaders.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Women also shared the advice they have personally implemented to navigate their careers.

Peggy Johnson is the CEO of augmented reality company Magic Leap. As a woman in tech, she's been the only woman in the room more than once in her career, and that experience helped her develop a range of methods to build support and get her ideas heard.

Here's how she learned how to be a better advocate for herself and for other introverts on her teams.

Peggy Johnson, Magic Leap: Yes It can be a lonely place.

It was for me, when I first started out in engineering, oftentimes I was the only woman in the room. And I think the best way to keep them there is when they feel comfortable in that environment. And that means getting to use their voice, ensuring that they're heard in a meeting, full of big voices.

If there's someone as I did who has a quieter voice and a bit of an introvert, making sure that their voice is also heard. And I think that goes a long way in helping people feel comfortable in and included and, and that their opinion is valued. And so, we need to do a little bit more of that to ensure that women who join these fields stay in these fields.

Being a bit of an introvert, I would say to the leader of that meeting, oftentimes beforehand, "Hey, just remember to throw me the ball," to use a sports analogy. Because I would struggle at times to find an opening in the, in a conversation of very big voices in a room. And, and if I couldn't get my word in in that meeting, I sometimes would go visit afterwards in someone's office and say, "You know what I, what I wanted to say in the meeting is this."

Because oftentimes it's hard to break in, and that goes for women and men and you know, anybody who has a hard time taking the floor in a meeting. It's good that the leader knows to do that and oftentimes just giving them that input, and that feedback is helpful.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Another woman in tech had her own tips for navigating meeting rooms. Here's former Apple engineer, Instrumental founder Anna Shedletsky on her advice for where she sits in a conference room to get her ideas heard.

Anna Katrina Shedletsky, Instrumental: As a young engineer, I was often the only woman in the room. I became very cognizant of power dynamics in that situation: Who had power in the room, who was leading the discussion whose ideas were listened to?

And so at a very, kind of young part of my career, became very aware of what was actually happening in the politics of the organization that I was working in.

And I found that there were some very tactical things that I could do that I felt increased my power in those interactions, and therefore increased my confidence in those interactions. Even if the power increase didn't matter, my confidence increased.

So things like where you choose to sit at the table is an important element of power dynamics in a meeting when you're the only woman in the room. There are commanding portions of the table, and you want to sit there. You don't want to sit in the benches behind the table at the back of the room. That is not a position of power

Usually, rooms are oriented with a long conference room table, and there's seats all the way around, including at the head of the table. Maybe there's a video conferencing system and there's usually doors on one side of the room and you want to be facing, you want to be on the side of the table, that's facing the doors and you want to be close within sight of the -- essentially whoever's the biggest person in the room -- who usually sits at the head.

So, you want to be right up next to them at the top of the table, but on the side facing the doors. You can also sit at the head of the table. If it's a meeting of equals, this is a very powerful position to be in. You can see everyone. And that's why it's a powerful position in the room.

Who owns the agenda is a position of power and a way to obtain power in a meeting. So, if you are being asked to set up the meeting, own the agenda. Don’t delegate the agenda to someone else, particularly when you're early in your career, that's a way to create power in that environment.

And I think also being willing to speak up and assert your position. One of the things that I always did because I was an engineer, I always really cared a lot about my technical reputation.

And so when I was going to assert something in a meeting, I always had the technical backup for that particular assertion. I had the data; I was familiar with it. I could support my statements with facts and that became a habit for me and how I continued to confidently engage with my co-workers over years. And I became well known for my technical reputation because I'd spent so much time investing in that early in my career.

Those are some of the kinds of tactical things you can do to obtain power in an environment where you're only one of very few women in a large amount of men or a majority of men.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Nela Richardson is the chief economist at ADP, one of the biggest providers of corporate payroll services, and the co-head at the ADP Research Institute, the thought leader on labour market and employee performance research. I asked her how leaders of any stripe can keep focused on long-term priorities despite short-term shifts. Here's what she said.

Nela Richardson: You know, maybe this is the best advice I've ever gotten: Do not lose sight of the urgent. at the expense of the important, there are a lot of urgent issues right now. that'll take an executive’s time. In terms of important, it's about really growing your business over the long-term and that means growing your people as well.

I think those distractions could really limit the capacity of the company. And it's really important to make the important things, like investment in people, centre in your strategies.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Ashleigh Streeter-Jones is the founder and CEO of Raise Our Voice Australia. That's a social enterprise that gets more women and gender diverse people into politics and policy. She has mentors for every part of her life, a sort of board of directors. And these mentors have helped her strengthen capabilities she didn't yet have and even create the plan that she needed to get traction for her brainchild, Raise Our Voice Australia. Here's Ashleigh.

Ashleigh Streeter-Jones, Raise Our Voice Australia: It was that I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of what I was trying to do. I don't come from a training background. I don't come from an education background. Although I studied politics and international relations at university, it was the operationalizing and localizing of that, that felt quite overwhelming.

I was tied up in my own perfectionism and I needed somebody to help me untangle my thoughts and really break that down into bite-sized steps, so I wasn't trying to eat the whole cake in one sitting. I was doing it in little bites. And little bites that I could really work on and nail down before I was ready to do the next thing.

Instead of trying to do the sixth step before the second step, then the 13th step, which is where I was at, at the first place.

So that consistency, that accountability and that compassion and patience, which of course was so central to the process as it allowed me to learn and and make mistakes and try different things, but really breaking it down into something so tangible and implementable.

I'm very lucky that I have a lot of mentors. I have mentors for different areas of my life. So, I've got wonderful retails, my start-up mentor, I've got a governance mentor. I've got a mentor for my day job. But actually most of what I learn comes from my peers, and I'm really lucky to be part of a community like the Global Shapers where there are many young leaders doing similar work to this.

It's very important to have people that we can celebrate with and it's very important to have people that we commiserate with. And I'm constantly learning from people. I'm constantly being mentored and, hopefully, mentoring back, and I turn to my mentors, both professional and collegiate, for so many things, whether it's how to keep volunteers on board or how to set a positive culture or how I can best learn from something that has happened if I feel like I'm sitting in a place of conflict or failure and how I can be the best leader possible.

So, I very much enjoy sitting in a place of self-reflection. I like talking through issues with people, but I often find myself deferring to the incredible community that I sit in particularly for those more technical questions of how do you move forward and, and what does good change look like?

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Lynn Martin is the president of the NYSE Group, group, the New York Stock Exchange, as well as the chair of the ICIS fixed income and data services business. She's only the second woman to hold this role, and I asked her what words of wisdom she might have for other leaders. Her tips are resonant to anyone, but especially our women listeners. Here's Lynne.

Lynn Martin, NYSE Group: Another wise, wise piece of advice I received is, You're not scalable. And it took me a minute to figure out what that meant.

It means you need to have the right team under you because you cover so much more ground if you have the right team under you. And from my perspective, that team has to collaborate. That team can't operate in silos. So that's been another area that I've been keenly focused on.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: And how do you create the environment that leads to that sort of collaboration?

Lynn Martin, NYSE Group: You know, a lot of spirited debates. A lot of it's okay to disagree, but we leave our disagreements in the meeting room.

And giving people the bandwidth to think differently, think outside the box and then try ideas.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Christina Gamboa is the CEO of the World Green Building Council, a network of more than 70 countries, decarbonizing the built environment and working to make a quality, sustainable space available to anyone. I spoke with her at the Annual Meeting in 2022 and she shared the best advice she's ever received, advice she got when she took on this CEO role. It's guidance that can help anyone as they rise in the ranks. Here's Christina.

Cristina Gamboa: The best piece of advice that I've gotten recently was from the chair of the World Green Building Council. When I came onto this role, and I relocated to London from Colombia, to take on this challenge that I have to keep the built environment as a critical climate solution high up in the international political agenda.

That was my main thing. The biggest piece of advice I got was continuing to have two, three priorities and that's it.

And one is make time for what matters. Keep always thinking on growth opportunities, be less operational. And learn as you go. If you get it wrong today, it doesn't matter. We get it right tomorrow.

And that has made me a more agile leader, taking on risk, but capitalizing in a way that is beneficial for the voice, for the leadership of the sustainable built environment movement. But also bringing people along in a journey of continuous improvement. And I've really enjoyed, let's say, that sort of piece of advice because it unlocked the best of me in an atmosphere where I was challenged in a new way of working.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: You say it unlocked the best of you. How so?

Cristina Gamboa: When you have some attributes as a leader and you're in your comfort zone, right? I was in Colombia in that comfort zone, and then I was put to a network in London.

It gave me the confidence to say no to many things and delegate much more. But also knowing that I am responsible for the professional development of everyone under my organization.

If I was making time to make sure that they are enabled in doing the things that, let's say, keep the organization going, it made me really build relationships from a right place and bringing that attribute of, I can be the best partner you can have, and I'm not competing. And I think that's what helped me a lot.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Geraldine Matchett Is the Co-CEO and CFO of biotech leader, Royal DSM. She shared an anecdote that helped her rethink the contribution that she can make to a team -- and it's one that helped convince her to take her current role.

Geraldine Matchett, Royal DSM: Every year there is a women's leaders dinner and one of this dinners was hosted by Sheryl Sandberg and Christine Lagarde and Queen Maxima, if I'm not mistaken.

And they were lamenting the fact that there were so few women in CEO positions. In fact, the number was decreasing. We had tables and there was a big discussion as to why is that. And at that discussion at some point I said, “Well, let's be clear. I think for a lot of women the motivation of being in the top job is not very high because often in that role you probably can do less than if you're a couple of layers underneath and you just get on with things.”

And there was someone, and my biggest regret is I didn't catch her name, she said, “Geraldine, you've got it wrong. This is not the question.” I said, “Oh, okay, help me.” She says, “Okay, we've done, a piece of work on villages and why are the heads of villages generally men? And when you ask the women, they said, ah, we don't have time for that. You know, we're too busy making sure that there's food and there's water and all these things. But if you ask the question, okay. If the way for the village to have fresh water, good quality water, a school, all the things that you want, if that takes you being the chief of the village, you change your view.”

And the answer was, oh, I hadn't thought about it that way. And the reason why this story really hit me is that it was a fundamentally different way of looking at ambition, which is not ambition linked to title. Not ambition linked to hierarchy, but ambition linked to impact. And it's a piece of advice that actually got me to step forward when the opportunity came to be CFO and co-CEO of DSM.

And I'm very grateful because I had big doubts otherwise that I had the personal motivation. but when you really anchor yourself on why is it that you're doing it, it's to achieve that.

And it resonated with me hugely, and it resonated with a lot of women leaders that I've spoken with since and it's something that I like to share because I think the world defines ambition sometimes in a very narrow, I have to say masculine, way.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Becky Frankiewicz is the Chief Commercial Officer at Manpower Group, Inc., a workforce solutions company. She shared a habit that she can't work without: protecting her time. It's a habit that anyone can benefit from, but given that women tend to do a greater share of caretaking and other tasks, it's one that can have a particular impact for women leaders. Here's Becky.

Becky Frankiewicz, Manpower Group: So I learned this about myself. I'm a jogger. I'd never described myself as a runner. I'm kind of a slow jogger. I've done a couple of marathons, so I think I have to claim now that I'm a bit of a long-distance jogger. But as I came and spent this summer for work in Europe, I had gotten off my schedule and what I realized is I wasn't showing up as my best self. And with limited time prioritizing people, if you're not showing up as your best self, you're letting yourself and your people down.

And so, I had to implement protecting time in the morning, you know, because it was start with breakfast and go through very late European dinners.

So, I had to start protecting that time in the morning to make sure I kept true to what helps me start my day off in the best way.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Thanks so much to all of these leaders who shared their tips with me, and thanks so much to you for listening

A transcript of this episode and my colleagues' episodes, Radio Davos and the Book Club Podcast is available at we.ch/podcasts.

This episode of Meet the Leader was presented and produced by me with Juan Toran as studio engineer for excerpts recorded at the Annual Meeting and Gareth Nolan driving studio production.

That's it for now. I'm Linda Lacina with the World Economic Forum. Have a great day.