McKinsey’s #PressForProgress

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Today the world celebrates International Women’s Day, focusing on this year’s theme #PressForProgress. McKinsey colleagues around the world are committed to making our firm the best environment for everyone. Many of our people play an active role in the fight for gender parity internally and externally. We could never list them all, but we wanted to introduce you to a few:

PARTNERS

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Dom's pledge to continue to #PressForProgress
Dom Press for Progress inline

Global managing partner Dominic Barton is one of ten impact champions for UN Women’s HeForShe – an initiative that engages men as advocates for gender equality and women’s rights. Dom pledged his support to #MentorHer, one of the newest LeanIn.org initiatives championed by McKinsey alumna Sheryl Sandberg.

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Mariana

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Many of our colleagues are involved with HeForShe, including Mariana, an associate partner in Sao Paulo (if you speak Portuguese, check out her interview by ONU Mulheres in which she describes how important it is for organizations to empower women to chart their own paths) and alumna Lauren who spent a year helping develop the initiative for UN Women.

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Lauren
Lauren inline








This year, our colleagues participated in two noteworthy conferences to press forward for parity: MAKERS 2018 and Glamour Women of the Year.

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Our colleagues ready for MAKERS 2018
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Check out our recent post to experience MAKERS through the eyes of our six delegates, four of whom were honored for their meaningful contributions to women’s recruiting and mentorship.



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Katy speaking at Glamour Women of the Year
Katy at Glamour inline

Then, meet Katy George who shared a phenomenal personal story about the power of generosity on the Glamour stage.

We’re also an active member in the U.S. 30% Club, Forte Foundation, Chefsache in Germany (we helped found this one!), Male Champions of Change in Australia, Valore D in Italy, ‘Paradigm for Parity,’ and CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion.


RESEARCHERS

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McKinsey senior partners Sandra Sancier-Sultan (left) and Sandrine Devillard (right)
Women Matter Sandrine inline

Sandrine has been leading a team of colleagues researching the importance of gender diversity in the workplace for more than 10 years. Her story can be found here as well as an update on our Women Matter research.




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McKinsey's 2017 Women in the Workplace team
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Lareina Yee, our Working Mother of the Year in 2016, leads our Women in the Workplace research with LeanIn.org. We’ve seconded several colleagues to LeanIn.org to support this research including Alia and Emma.





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Dame Vivian Hunt, managing partner for our offices in the UK & Ireland, and one of the authors of Delivering through Diversity.
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This research, along with broader diversity & inclusion research (including Power of Parity and Delivering Through Diversity) is important because it’s shaping the debate on a global level by providing facts and figures that support diversity and parity – not just because its right, but also because it makes business sense.


INTERNAL LEADERS

Internally, we have myriad of colleagues who strive to make McKinsey the best place for all our colleagues – including women. A few years ago, we launched a firm-wide ‘All In’ initiative to engage colleagues of all genders around the world to develop and share innovative ways of working which advance inclusivity.

We have taken steps to ensure our policies and processes – as well as our overall culture – promote gender inclusivity. For example, we offer resources to improve balance including team barometers, Mindful Travel, Take Time (an extra 5-10 unpaid weeks off a year to pursue personal passions) and Pace in addition to standard part-time programs. We provide distinctive parental leave options for birth and adoptive parents. We train all leaders and interviewers on unconscious bias and offer a suite of women’s focused mentorship, sponsorship, and training in addition to our already best-in-class learning curriculum for everyone.

Thousands of women are involved in these initiatives; here are a few:

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Trish, the leader of our All In initiative
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Trish is a partner in our Operations practice who is currently leading All In: “The advancement of women in the corporate world and society more broadly is the driving passion of my life. I could not pass up the opportunity to spend a year fully dedicated to furthering this objective within the firm, and creating connections with other global leaders in this space. We have made enormous progress in recruiting, and now we’re focusing on ensuring we are doing what it takes to support our women as they grow into successful partners of the firm. We know that its critical to have robust representation of female leaders all the way up to and including our top firm leadership, and we are committed to make this a reality.”

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Junna

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Junna, an associate partner in Shanghai, is a champion of our Asia Women of Steel group “founded to inspire, support, and advance future women leaders in our Operations, Global Energy & Materials, RTS, and McKinsey Implementation practices. Greater China has become a leader in recruiting high potential female candidates, and our group is now improving development and retention through sponsorship, connectivity, and trainings. “It has been very exciting to be part of the effort to foster a dedicated community where our female colleagues can find inspiration and support to empower each other and develop our next generation of women leaders.”

You can read more examples on our careers blog, women’s blog and McKinsey Women’s Facebook page.

And our efforts have been recognized. We’ve been consistently rated one of Working Mother magazine’s 100 best companies for working mothers (in their top 10 the last three years). We’ve been included on the 2018 National Association for Female Executives (NAFE) Top Companies for Executive Women (six times), the UK Times Top 50 places where women want to work (10 years running) and Australia’s Workforce Gender Equality Agency’s “Employer of Choice for Gender Equality” (2016 & 2017). This year, in addition to being name the top consulting firm in North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe by Vault, we were also honored as #1 in overall diversity in North America and Europe (#2 in Asia) in 2018.

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