GETTY IMAGES
REACH BEYOND
YOUR BUSINESS I spend a lot of time going out and talking to owners of firms of all sizes. Many female business leaders who speak to me raise the very same points we’re focusing on here. They say: “I don’t have role models; please advise me; I’m finding it hard to raise cash…” In 2016 I set up #SheMeansBusiness [a scheme helping women to start their own businesses,
offering them guidance, support networks, partnerships and events] in EMEA. It’s now rolling out in 11 countries. Research indicates that these female founders have the potential to generate more than £10 billion of economic value. Many are now running successful ventures. It’s crucial to get more women thinking: “Yeah, I can do that.”
‘MANY PARTICIPANTS IN #SHEMEANSBUSINESS ARE NOW RUNNING SUCCESSFUL VENTURES. IT’S CRUCIAL TO GET MORE WOMEN THINKING: ‘YEAH, I CAN DO THAT”’
NURTURE ONLINE COMMUNITIES One autumn night in 2014,
Mel Bound, a mother of two in Bristol, posted a note on Facebook. She said: “I’m not feeling great today. Anyone fancy joining me for a run?” To her surprise, 70 women turned up. Today she organises social runs, oversees a community of 35,000 women and sells athletic wear through her website, This Mum Runs. The business couldn’t have existed without the web – and we have so many more examples like that. We’ve put the #SheMeansBusiness
training resources up on our website (
shemeansbusiness.fb.com/uk). This means that, if people can’t make it along to one of our events, they can learn in their own time. To date, we
20
director.co.uk
have trained more than 80,000 women. Just think about all the communities that build out – and all those new jobs.
CHALLENGE BAD BEHAVIOUR If your business adopts all of
the measures I’ve talked about so far and wants to stay successful, you must continue to appreciate that people are very different. A leader should be responsible for creating values with universal appeal – and, crucially, for upholding these values. I’ve always believed that calling out bad behaviour is a good thing. Today’s customers, for instance, won’t stand for bad corporate behaviour and are not afraid to challenge it in public. Why wouldn’t any business leader want to do that?
SET AND ENFORCE CLEAR RULES
There is no place on the Facebook platform for anyone who is looking to discriminate through targeted recruitment advertisements placed on our site. We’ve been very clear about that and changed our policies accordingly. There’s no place for hate speech here either. In its prevention efforts, Facebook has invested billions in artificial intelligence systems and people. We now have 30,000 employees on our safety and security team, while our machine learning is getting stronger. We publish a transparency report on things such as hate speech. We’ve doubled the number of takedowns we can do, yet we still need to devote more time and money to this really important area.
BE THE ALLY If you are
trying to instil change in a business but first need to win people over, start a couple of levels down from the position you’re in and find out what people there are thinking. You can ask them: “How can I help?” and “I saw this in another organisation. Do you think it would be a good thing to have here?” My advice, especially to
male CEOs, is: be the ally. Does that mean you should mentor someone? I don’t like the word “mentor”. I prefer the word “sponsor” – as in: “Here’s a person I believe in; I’m going to back them.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
