Hard to tell as a mother of three children with family, which is really important to me. It depends on how supportive my husband and my environment would have been. Would my employer have supported my absences and my potential part time for some years? I would really like to say “Yes, I would also have made it to the top leadership ranks”. Even though times have changed since the beginning of my career, I am not sure if that would be a realistic answer.

I have always been driven by the human being. I come from tourism, hospitality and services, where humans have always been at the center of my action, without any difference. But western culture is driven by duality, which always looks at the dichotomy and the antipodes. Therefore, I think that stereotypes are everywhere and in many different areas of diversity. As leaders, we need to oppose any such attitude. However, we all walk every day on a thin line and we need to be attentive, because nobody is immune to bias.

One of our key values at ManpowerGroup is ‘People’. We help people develop their careers – not only men or women – people. We have been elected as one of the most ethical companies of the world several times as we take gender or any other stereotype seriously. In our Management Team, 3 out of 7 positions are filled by women. We do not really care about gender when looking for someone to fill a position – we care about talent and personality. But we are not blind, and we know that there is still a lot of work to do.