Corporate Responsibility Weblog - Instituto de Empresa Business School

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July 13, 2006

Gender Diversity discussed at the Corporate Responsibility Tribune

Max Oliva, Associate Director of IE's Social Impact Management

On Wednesday, July 12th, it was published at Expansion the 3rd “Corporate Responsibility Tribune” which in this case dealt with managing gender diversity. This tribune is a joint initiative by Instituto de Empresa, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Expansión, whose main aim is to bring the CR discussion to the highest levels of European companies, ranging from Board Members, CEO’s and top management, to high government officers, NGO’s and other social representatives together with academia. It is intended to serve as a catalyser between all the different stakeholders and thus bring input from all ends, enriching the CR discussion while adding value to all participants.

In this case, the discussion was on diversity, focusing on gender diversity, but not excluding cultural diversity and other facets. In this conversation, among others Juan Mora from NH Hotels shared very interesting points of view in regards to diversity. The article at Expansión is only in spanish, though I recommend it. I'll try to summarize a couple of points of the conversation which took place.

Specifically on the service sector, Juan Mora stated that at NH hotels, diversity wasn’t just a question of gender but more of cultural diversity. Of their 14,200 employees, they have 110 nationalities, which has given them a vast experience in managing diversity. 52% of their hotel directors are women, and 3 of their 7 top management positions are held by women as well. However he did complied that, although they formerly did, at the moment they have no women on their board. He was however not favourable to positive discrimination in order to reduce this gap, but rather shared his view of going step by step in creating an internal culture within the organization which fosters diversity. Just another fact shared by him: of their high potential employees which they have identified internally in the organization, 70% were women. He concluded that it was not a question of if, but only a question of time.

The conversation was moderated by Joaquín Garralda, Director of PwC & IE Center on Corporate Responsibility and by Carmen García de Andrés, PwC Partner and responsible for the program of Women in PwC. The invited speakers who took part of the conversation where the following:

Soledad Murillo.jpg
Soledad Murillo, Secretary of State on Equality Policies, Spain
Ramón Paredes, Executive Vice-President of HR at Seat
Marieta Rivero, CEO of Nokia Spain
María Benjumea, President of Infoempleo
Susana Rodríguez Vidarte, Dean of the “Universidad Comercial de Deusto”
Belén Garijo Falcó, General Manager of Sanofi Aventis Spain
María Eugenia Girón, General Manager of Carrera & Carrera
Celia de Anca, Director of the Center for Diversity in Global Management at IE

Maria Benjumea.jpg
Some ideas raised and shared by the speakers which we can further discuss on are the following:
Ramón Paredes.jpg
“When opportunities are equal, it’s not a question of gender, but a question of attitude”
“Women are still considered as a group, instead of as individuals and professionals”
"Diversity can be undesrtood by countries, cultures, professional experiences, not by gender"
“It is in the companies’ main interest to manage talent, regardless of gender or culture, but based on competences”
"Both men and women must be subjet to the benefits of conciliation policies"
"In order to reduce the gap between men and women on top management, it is not only a question of time, but also a question of establishing processes, visibility and information"