The Creative Class

To build up their experience capital, women can pick the occupations, industries, and geographies that present the best opportunities to enhance their careers. Workplaces are full of talented, educated, and hardworking women. Many are caught off guard when, several years into their careers, they see that they are falling behind their peers, and they can’t put a finger on exactly how or why. Women, after all, are doing everything they can to prepare themselves for successful careers. As early as kindergarten, girls on average outperform boys across all disciplines, including math. Women in almost all developed countries earn undergraduate and graduate degrees at higher rates on average than men, with better grade point averages. Yet quite quickly after graduation, many women start losing ground in the workplace. For example, despite making up 59 percent of college graduates in the United States, women represent only 48 percent of those entering the corporate workforce. And then come the first promotions to management roles: For every 100 men, only 81 women are promoted. The blended average of 81 women overall breaks down to 99 Asian women, 89 White women, 65 Latina women, and 54 Black women. This advancement gap persists and compounds over women’s careers, with lower representation of women at every step of the corporate-leadership ladder. We call this phenomenon the “broken rung.” The first broken rung of the corporate ladder opens up a gender gap that widens further at every subsequent rung, including senior-leadership positions. It is that first broken rung, however, that affects the entire talent pipeline. Despite initiatives to improve gender parity in the corporate ranks over the past decades, gains have been modest. The largest improvement has been in the C-suite, where women have moved from being one in five top executives to just over one in four reporting […]

Top organisations are deploying a range of strategies to address the known issues affecting women’s advancement.   While  companies are increasingly active in their efforts to drive gender equality, women remain underrepresented in the career pipeline. Women constitute 42 percent of all employees, yet make up just a quarter of executives and only 10 percent of CEOs for large, for-profit companies. The transition point from key management positions to CEO has the highest drop off (59 percent) in women’s representation of any in the pipeline. Over the past three years, the average growth rate across all industries in women taking leadership roles stands at 2.8 percent, with public administration and with rental, hiring, and real-estate services leading the pack at 19.6 percent and 15.1 percent growth rates, respectively. Despite the positive trajectory, women’s representation in management, C-suite, and CEO roles continues to be a particular challenge. Progress at the very top is expected to be slow Beyond today’s pipeline numbers, the low numbers of women in key management roles presents a challenge that is difficult to change in the near term. Of the 24 percent of women in key management roles today, many of them are in support roles, such as head of human resources and general counsel. Research on workplace diversity reveals, around 90 percent of CEO appointments come from line roles such as chief operating officer or head of a business division. This means the near-term pipeline of women who are in line for CEO appointments is even smaller than it appears. Efforts to achieve gender equality are apparent The objective to achieve gender equality and change these dynamics is evident. Companies implement stand-alone gender-equity strategies. Recruitment policies are the most emphasised area. However, while policies are a useful tool for progressing toward gender balance, they alone do […]

Over the past decade, women’s representation has increased at every level of corporate management. Most notably, women today make up 29 percent of C-suite positions, compared with just 17 percent in 2015. But progress has been much slower earlier in the pipeline, at the entry and manager levels. However, the corporate pipeline is not as healthy as the numbers suggest. Women remain underrepresented across the pipeline, a gender gap that persists regardless of race and ethnicity. Simply put, men outnumber women at every level. What’s more, women continue to face barriers at the beginning of the pipeline. They remain less likely than men to be hired into entry-level roles, which leaves them underrepresented from the start. Then, women are far less likely than men to attain their very first promotion to a manager role—a situation that’s not improving. In 2018, for every 100 men who received their first promotion to manager in 2018, 79 women were promoted; this year, just 81 women were. Because of this “broken rung” in the corporate ladder, men significantly outnumber women at the manager level, making it incredibly difficult for companies to support sustained progress at more senior levels. This phenomenon is even worse for women of colour, who represent only 7 percent of current C-suite positions—just a four-percentage-point increase since 2017. The ‘broken rung’ remains a significant barrier to women’s advancement, especially for women of colour. For every 100 men promoted to manager, 89 White women were promoted in 2024. Asian women have experienced the greatest improvements in the broken rung but encounter significant hurdles later in the pipeline. Women have made modest but meaningful gains at the vice president and senior-vice-president levels since 2018, but their progress is more fragile than it appears. The main driver of women’s increased representation was a reduction […]

11 strategies are highlighted as crucial to reach up to 80% reduction in emissions, with integrated energy management playing a more substantial role than classic retrofits. The World Economic Forum has released a report proposing a $1.8 trillion global market opportunity through the decarbonisation of buildings by 2030. The report identifies 11 strategies to reduce building emissions by 80%, emphasising the crucial role of advanced technologies, including integrated energy management. “It was only a matter of time until we see AI-driven platforms highlighted in the most influential reports. They enable real-time optimization of building energy systems, managing data from thousands of sensors to ensure peak efficiency,” said Donatas Karčiauskas, CEO of Exergio, a leading company in the Baltics that focuses on AI-based building energy performance solutions. “This approach aligns perfectly with the WEF’s strategies, facilitating significant emission reductions and operational improvements.” The report identifies integrated energy management as a critical strategy for achieving a collective 80% reduction in emissions. For the first time, it was placed as more important than insulation or traditional renovations. Owners and investors are now encouraged to invest in digitalisation to capture operational-cost savings, architects and engineers are urged to deploy energy management systems, and utilities and operators are advised to provide technology and services to generate new revenue streams and build synergy with renewable development. “As energy performance platform providers, we know that investing in digitalisation and AI-based solutions is not just about cutting costs anymore; it’s about unlocking new revenue streams and creating long-term value,” Karčiauskas emphasized. “Achieving up to 20% in energy savings is a common practice for us, however, we also see increased user satisfaction in the buildings whose energy performance is controlled using AI solutions.” Alongside integrated energy management, key strategies highlighted in the report include upgrading heating and cooling systems, […]