What a morning! More than 50 CEOs of Advance member companies gathered at our CEO Breakfast 2024. Hosted by Andreas Berger at Swiss Re, this year's edition was dedicated to intentional career sponsorship, a highly relevant lever for driving progress in gender equality in leadership.
With Advance President Anna Mattsson, Partner McKinsey & Company, and Malvika Singh, Managing Director of Impact, Initiator & Co-Founder of Advance, leading through the morning, we were thrilled to welcome more than 50 CEOs to our exclusive annual CEO Breakfast.
The focus of this year’s edition was intentional career sponsorship. Why? Because it is key: No promotion ever happens without a sponsor who knows about one’s performance, track record, and leadership potential – and who ADVOCATES for his or her “sponsee”. The need to consciously sponsor female talent early on becomes clear when looking at the hot off-the-press insights from the Gender Intelligence Report 2024, which Anna Mattson presented to kick off the event.
While we have reached equality in education and see a balanced workforce in non-management, the imbalance in Switzerland is striking when considering positions with true influence and power. Women’s share of power positions is only 13%. We could leverage so much more potential for the greater good regarding GDP growth, innovation, and productivity.
“It is like swimming with one arm tied to the back,“ one panelist pointedly stated in the discussion. Imagine what forces we can unleash once we intentionally enable all our talents to thrive and engage to their best. So, what can we all do to move towards power balance?
“Just do it” – start piloting career sponsorship for women without over-formalizing or creating more bureaucracy and scale what works. Choose to sponsor talents that are not a “mini-you”.
Make it intentional and transparently performance-based; building trust to pave the way for candid feedback is essential.
Hold leaders accountable for sponsoring diverse talent according to your goals.
Fostering only half of the talent pool is like swimming with one arm tied to the back.
Huge thanks to our photographer Linda Pollari!
