While a World Bank research reveals that eliminating discrimination against working women has increased labor productivity by as much as 25 percent across countries, a report by McKinsey finds that $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 by advancing women’s equality. However, despite such optimistic statistics regarding women in the labor force, women are, on average, less likely to participate in the labor force than men, according to Catalyst. Today, very few women are CEOs of the world’s largest corporations, and as of the 2018 Fortune list, only 24 women (4.8 percent) were CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. All this just highlights the fact that from entry-level to the C-suite, women are underrepresented in organizations, have lesser opportunities to advance than men, face more barriers to senior leadership like biases and stereotypes, experience an uneven playing field and fight issues related to balancing work and family, see a lack of senior or visibly successful female role models and not enough leaders sponsoring highly qualified women, the reasons that hold women back are many. Corroborating this is the fact that women don’t take risks at the workplace when it comes to leveraging opportunities. A study by KPMG that surveyed over 2000 professional women reveals that when it comes to risk-taking in the workplace, seven in ten (69 percent) women are open to taking small risks to further their career, but far fewer (43 percent) are open to taking bigger risks that may be associated with career advancement.  

We know the reasons but we wanted to know how women leaders who have “been there, done that” think about what holds women back, how they can level the playing field, their perspectives on gender biases and stereotypes, and what they are doing for other women in the supposedly male-dominated digital era and in the world of #MeToo movement?

This cover story brings to you what women leaders think about success, empowerment, and enabling other women at the workplace.

Read what the experts have to share:

Creating workplaces that truly work for women: Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global

Workplaces need to be inclusive: Carolyn Chin-Parry is the Chief Digital Officer at Prism

Stay tuned for more...