Office Warming
Zurich, June 28, 2019

What a day it was! Bright sunshine, a fresh breeze and a great inclusive get-together with many smiling faces, blended with curiosity about our first own office and “Advance on the Rocks”, a cocktail created especially for us. If the atmosphere and empowering spirit are an omen for our future, the Advance community has a lot to look forward to.

Over 100 guests attended the inauguration of our new – and first! – own location. It was a special pleasure to welcome the pioneers and founding ladies Simona Scarpaleggia, CEO of IKEA Switzerland, and Malvika Singh, Managing Director of Impact. They started this venture six years ago with only nine member companies. Now, Advance counts over 100! Thanks to all our active supporters, the benefits of fostering gender balance in all spheres of life and on all organizational levels right up to top leadership positions spreads faster than anyone had ever imagined. Kudos to everybody who has helped and keeps helping Advance grow and create impact!

Little Guided Tours

Apart from networking among the high-caliber guests, our new office home was the center of attraction. With only one room and a little kitchen, you wouldn’t expect this, would you? Yet, the interest in visiting our office was really BIG. Not only because we were fortunate to find a premise right in the City center with very nice business neighbors including an idyllic garden, but also because the interior design and office furniture has been sponsored by IKEA. Thank you very much once again for making us feel at home at work!

A Tasty Experience

This unique occasion called for a special touch. Since we recently launched our new name, Advance – Gender Equality in Business, together with a whole new and explicitly inclusive corporate design, we wanted to celebrate this with a unique and tasty experience. Something that goes beyond the conventional. Something uplifting and engaging that has an immediate positive impact. Thus, the idea of the Advance Cocktail came to life. It was created by our Cocktail Master of Ceremony, Brian Medeiros. Fruity red and diverse with a positive kick, both in a pure and a classic version. “On the Rocks” was our working title. The idea was to involve our members and fans. So, we asked them to become creative and propose names that match our mission. To make the jury inclusive, everybody could give a point to her or his favorite name.

30 Name Proposals on the Line

We got a great number of name suggestions. Some even sent their name candidates prior to the event by e-mail. Simply awesome! We keep them all that we are prepared to diversify and open the Advance Bar on the day we reach parity ;). On a more serious note, let’s keep engaging together to make sure we continue accelerating change and see parity become a lived reality to create a better world for all of us and the future generations.

“Glass Ceiling Smash” or “B-50/50”?

The result of our inclusive jury delivered two names head-to-head: B-50/50 and Glass Ceiling Smash. For the final decision, we will involve our community once again and put up both names for a vote on LinkedIn. Please participate and follow Advance on LinkedIn to do so. We will share the cocktail recipe with you once the final name is out. As a price, the winner will get 1 free Advance Credit to participate in a Skill Building Workshop of her choice. Yes, so much is already clear: The winner will be a lady.

STriving for Inclusion & Equality in Everything we Do

Living up to inclusion & gender equality in daily business and private life is our mission. It is not an easy task because legacies, existing policies and grown structures as well as unconscious biases are sticky. Therefore, it takes 1) a discussion on what progress really means for us today, 2) a new consensus on what we, as individuals, business leaders and members of our society, want to value in terms of remuneration, incentives and regulations, 3) a shared understanding of the bigger picture in terms of sustainability goals and what it takes to reach them, and 4) above all, it takes perseverance and togetherness of like-minded people to drive this change forward.

We can all foster concrete progress day by day. All of us can be champions of gender equality. It starts with becoming mindful of our own biases, by role modeling inclusive and gender equal behavior and by setting clear targets in our own organizations. At its best, aspirational, intrinsically motivated and fitting to specific needs.

We are on a learning journey, and we are in this together. In that sense, we invite you to keep inspiring Advance as our shared platform to create impact. We have it in our hands. In the here and now. Please reach out to us with your thoughts via contact@weadvance.ch.

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