This year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8th comes at a time when global communities, businesses, and governments find themselves continuing to pirouette, pivot, and adapt in the face of a relentless, global pandemic.
COVID-19 has touched every aspect of our lives. As women, overnight we suddenly found that we had a portfolio career – comprising our day jobs, caregiver, school teacher and house cleaner – that we had neither asked for, nor were consulted on.
Yet amongst this turmoil there have been genuine moments of celebration, when female accomplishments have taken center stage in world events. Women such as Professor Sarah Gilbert are at the forefront of the scientific fight back against the pandemic, Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first South Asian Black female Vice President of the United States, and Citigroup Inc announced Jane Fraser would be its new CEO – Wall Street’s first female bank boss.
It’s these achievements that inspire us to keep moving forward, to overcome, and remain committed to progress. That’s why this year’s theme for IWD, #ChooseToChallenge, resonates so deeply.
#ChoosetoChallenge and me
The first time I took a stand, I was in seventh grade. There was a teacher I didn’t think was behaving in the correct way. I talked to my parents and told them that I wanted to take action. They were so supportive, and my Mom marched into the head teacher’s office with me.
That experience taught me several critical lessons that I have carried with me ever since. The first was that you want to be able to influence change, not be the show; approach is everything. The second is the importance of support. Having my mom with me as a seventh-grader gave me the confidence to stick to my convictions and create change. Challenging is hard, but it’s even harder when you feel alone.
I also realised that finding my voice was scary, but that speaking my truth was important; that moment challenged me to confront my own fears and persist despite them. It’s a lesson I reflect on daily. I have a plaque that says “do one thing everyday that scares you” and everytime something wonderful has happened, it is because I took a leap of faith.
Business needs to change
Already at an economic disadvantage pre-2020, the juggling that women have endured during the pandemic is predicted to erase years of progress for women in the workplace. Deloitte reports that nearly 70% of women have experienced adverse changes to their daily routines during the pandemic, or believe these shifts have prevented—or will prevent—them from progressing.
We’re staring a deep and prolonged female leadership crisis in the face. Data shows that diverse teams perform better and that those companies where women are well represented at the top deliver better profitability. Yet hiring processes continue to propagate bias towards women by not changing their minimum requirements. Women can’t become leaders if they can’t even get through the front door in the first place.
We need to tear through convention and use the pandemic as a moment to pause and ask what’s possible now? Smart companies will rise to the challenge, focus on capability over whether you have an MBA and reimagine how teams work, opening up more job-sharing opportunities based around collaboration placing more emphasis on skills such as communication and teamwork. These are attributes that women have in abundance. As the office fades in importance, such skills will become highly prized – the engine room of corporate performance that’s defined not by profitability alone, but by values, sustainability, and societal contribution.
Cloudera rising to the challenge
Like many companies, Cloudera is on a journey towards achieving true gender diversity. But it’s a path we’re committed to. In 2021, we will be empowering Clouderans with Allyship, inclusive interview and inclusive leadership training to name just a few programmes that are rolling out in the first half of the year. We’ll be holding ourselves accountable, having recently welcomed data scientist Solomon Makoni to our DE&I team to analyse the impact all our equality initiatives have on the experience of our employees. In 2021 we’re proud to be an official supporter of IWD and to empower all employees to #ChooseToChallenge in order to create a more gender-inclusive world.
Editor's Choice
I see Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was left out of this list of the Women Big Achievers…… Was that a genuine error or deliberate omission? Like Kamala Harris, Ngozi’s appointment as WTO Director General is a major feat being the first person of colour and first women to hold this position. I believe there is no tenable excuse for this omission.
The examples within the blog were intended to spotlight a few of the tremendous achievements by women in the last year. It is certainly not an exhaustive list. As you point out, there have been many reasons to celebrate and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s appointment was certainly a highlight. We will be sure to reference Ngozi as appropriate in future blogs.