Prioritizing Diversity and Promoting Women’s Leadership

Men and women leaders all have a role to play to make gender diversity a priority and promote more women to top levels of organizations. 

A former senior leader at Citigroup, Sallie Krawcheck has a theory about what led to the global financial crisis and why it hit the economy so hard.

“Though there were many factors, one thing I am convinced of having been at the front row is that one of the causes was groupthink,” she said. “Too many men from similar backgrounds were the decision makers in the boardroom.”

Krawcheck, now CEO of fintech startup Ellevest, is on a mission to close the gender gap in the senior leadership ranks of corporate America. Addressing that persistent problem was the focus of BRG’s inaugural Women’s Leadership Conference, held in Naples, Fla., in November 2019. Krawcheck and hundreds of female C-suite leaders from leading organizations discussed, learned and exchanged ideas for how to advance more women to the top of their professions.

Mary Karen Wills, a managing director in BRG’s Washington, DC, office, was one of the event’s organizers. With over 30 years of experience providing consulting and financial advisory services to organizations from middle market to the Fortune 100 and international NGOs, Wills leads BRG’s Government Contracting practice. We asked for her takeaways from the WLC and what she learned about addressing the gender gap in corporate America.

Read the full Q&A in ThinkSet.