Significant work needs to be done to ensure better gender balance, according to Laurie Forkas, senior assistant general counsel at Marsh and McLennan.
Speaking at the ‘Women in the Captive Industry: Empowering Industry Awareness’ session at the 2018 Bermuda Captive Conference, Forkas quoted the World Economic Forum’s 2017 report on the global gender gap.
Lorkas commented: “The report said it will take 217 years to close the economic global gender gap. That is astonishing.”
“In the last four years the number has risen, so there is lots of work to be done.”
She added that those at the top need to understand why women or underrepresented employees are leaving and understand their needs.
She explained: “They need to have the courage to change things and they need certain policies and practices in place to help pay equity and advancement in careers, there need to be policies on how to move people forward.”
Assistant treasurer at the Coca Cola Company, Stacy Apter, also speaking on the panel, said giving leaders corporate objectives could help aid gender balance.
She explained: “I think it has to be a corporate tangible thing that is part of leaders objectives. It needs to be that sort of initiative.”
Another of the panellists, Sophia Greaves, director at Conyers Dill and Pearman, said it was not just enough for companies to “have the diversity box checked”.
Greaves stated: “It is one thing to check a box, but it is another to have diversity of thought. It is very important to have people that are genuinely thinking about things differently.”
She added: “One of the many challenges of young women face is this pressure to have to fit a certain mold and I think that is hugely defeatist.”
“This thought around conformist ideology which means they don’t feel free or feel that they belong for who they are is negative.”
