News & background
FEMINIZATION OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN
FEMALE SUPPLY CHAIN PROFESSIONALS helping each other to reach the top
‘ How can we increase the number of women in supply chain man- agement?’ That continues to be a key topic on the agenda of Anita Arts, Managing Director of Global Supply Chain at cable giant Liberty Global International, which is why she hosted the ‘Superwomen of the supply chain’ event for the second time on 8 March 2018.
On this year’s International Women’s Day, Supply Chain Media once again organized an event for which 30 impassioned and inspired supply chain directors flew in to the Netherlands from all over Europe – not only to discuss the practical aspects of their jobs with one another, but also to share experiences and exchange ideas for increasing the number of women in top-level supply chain management roles. The event’s ambassador, Anita Arts, kicked off the proceedings with a presentation about Liberty Global’s supply chain. The largest international cable company has 22 million customers and 35,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) in the supply chain. “Our global supply chain team works both internally and with our customers through- out the whole chain. We ensure that customers get the service they need, when they need it. The only thing they have to worry about is that they have high-speed internet and the content they want,” said Arts, who had brought along some of her team members to the event too. Karin Visser from executive search agency Korn Ferry presented the findings from a study of 57 female current and former CEOs, which among other things was aimed at gaining insight into the path to becoming a CEO. A colossal 65% of the respondents said they only actually realized they could become CEO when someone else said it, and for 6% of the women it only became clear when they attained a senior role. 12% had haboured a long-held desire to become CEO, whereas 7% had never considered it.
Another result from the study was that the career approaches of female CEOs can be roughly divided into four different types of behaviour: continuously looking for a new challenge, gaining a company-wide perspective, building new business, or unwaver- ingly following a particular career path. Moreover, the research revealed a strong ‘father figure’ and supportive partner to be impor- tant.
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Vanessa Seip and her colleague Kathrin Butschek, both from management con- sultancy Oliver Wyman, studied gender diversity in procurement based on input from 300 CPOs. Women account for just 40% in procurement, compared with an average of 48% in other roles.
The average age of the women when they first became CEO was 50.9, compared with an average of 46.8 for men. Women could be ready for it sooner, but it ultimately takes them longer to become a CEO. Visser’s advice for the women was: “Don’t walk; run to gain P&L experience. Seek out challenges and learn from them. It’s all about who you know, what you know and who knows that you know it.” To help maximize women’s career chances, Martijn Lofvers from organizer Supply Chain Media demonstrated the ‘Gender Diversity for the Female Talent’ checklist, supported by input from supply chain talent Ramona Held. Lucy Harding from Odgers Berdtson offered some similarly inter- esting insights from her own experiences as a headhunter: “9 out of 10 requests to meet up for a cup of coffee come from men who are not necessarily even looking for a new job.” Besides that, men are often much more aware of who can help them. “Men tend to go along to small-scale dinners where they can have high-quality conversations with influential people, whereas women are more likely to attend large-scale, formal gatherings. Women more fre- quently attend on behalf of their employer and take back the knowl- edge they gain, while men are more likely to go for their own ben- efit.” In that respect the women at the ‘Superwomen of the supply chain’ event had perhaps already taken an important step in the right direction – they had travelled to Liberty Global partly for their respective employer, but mostly for themselves.
SUPPLY CHAIN MOVEMENT, No.29, Q2 2018
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