[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s the first female Lord Mayor for 30 years (and only the second in the role’s 800 year history), it is natural that the city’s gender diversity should come up on my agenda. There has long been a moral case for inclusion, but more and more, businesses are seeing that there is also a strong business case for it. The city has always been a place of openness to newcomers, and this is one of the keys to its success and longevity; it thrives on an innovative climate where ideas can be bounced around and conventional or outdated thinking can be challenged. As Lord Mayor, I want to make the most of my unique role to bring together many of the committed individuals and organizations in the city who are working to bring about a change. I want to harvest the enthusiasm of many chairmen and chief executives for capturing the benefits of diversity, and my “power of diversity” programme aims to do just that.It has been said that the global financial crisis demonstrates what can happen when everyone thinks the same way and there is no one with a different background to challenge crucial business decisions. A diversity of voices could not be heard. If all sides of the debate are to be represented, and if we are to ensure that we live in a true meritocracy, then we enable the best and the brightest to reach the top—whatever their race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or socio-economic background.
One of the great privileges of my job as Lord Mayor is the opportunity I have to travel to economic powerhouses like India to trade ideas and gain inspiration from the ways in which countries across the world are tackling their challenges, including the problems of gender diversity and attracting global talent, which is highly mobile.
India is a country which, despite discrepancies in the percentage of women who work, has managed rapidly to improve gender diversity at the top level over the last 30 years. However, as in the UK, there is still much work to be done, and no room for complacency. Around 5% of executive positions are held by women in India, against 6% in the city. We both have challenges to face up to if we are to prevent “blockage in the pipeline” of female talent headed to the top.
The new Companies Act in 2013 highlights the topic of gender diversity with its requirement that at least one board member must be female. The idea of requirements like these are the subject of fierce debate in the UK, between, on the one hand, those who are wary of tokenism and feel strongly that women must feel they are present on merit rather than to “tick-a-box”, and those who feel that change is happening too slowly and that quotas are needed to spur companies into action. There are points to be made on both sides, but my firm belief is that it is not enough to appoint a small number of women at the top and leave it at that. We need to tackle the underlying issues that can hold back or prevent people from different backgrounds rising to the top.
Anyone in the boardrooms (and not just women) must have appropriate experience and skills if we are to avoid tokenism. And to do that, we need to ensure that there is a proper pipeline of talent coming through. We must be supporting women from the ground up throughout their careers—in the same way in which we support Olympic athletes by identifying, investing in and coaching talent. We do not expect champion tennis players to emerge fully formed; nor should we expect our future leaders, from any background, to start at the top of their careers. We must nurture our talent.
In some ways, India is ahead of Britain—as of the end of last year, there were no fewer than eight female banking bosses, and Arundhati Bhattacharya was recently announced as the first chairwoman of the State Bank of India—roughly at the same time that Janet Yellen was announced as the Federal Reserve chairwoman. There are clearly lessons we can take away by working together to help improve the flow of talent.
The 21st century holds huge challenges for countries across the world, and India is no exception. India has vast infrastructure needs and is coping with the challenges of globalization and the rapidly growing middle class. As in the UK, new challenges require new ideas, and in order to ensure that we are fully open to those ideas, we must be listening to ideas from all sources, valuing difference and championing all those who can make a contribution. This is the true power of diversity in action.
Fiona Woolf is the Lord Mayor of the city of London. Courtesy Mint &Tthe Wall Street Journal
