Last night, I watched a BBC news report, which said that the Japanese government is asking non-working mothers to get back to the workforce. A large number of Japanese working women had opted to be stay-at-home mums, owing to the pressures of being a good housewife and a good mother. The Japanese government is now urging them to contribute to the economy and establish a new identity for themselves. This is in the East.
A similar voice echoed in the West, a week ago. The voice of Google’s new CFO, Ruth Porat, who was hired in March 2015. Considered as one of the most powerful women in the business, recently at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in San Francisco, Ruth said that technology companies need to embrace more women in their workforce and offer more opportunities to them. Not just that, she said that it is good for the bottomline.
“This is not just the right thing to do socially. It’s the right thing to do for your business,” said Porat, who is chief financial officer of both Google and its newly-formed holding company Alphabet, CNET reported.
In her interview, she says, “The toughest part of all, is how do you bust through subconscious biases? What is it that along the way makes it harder for women or other groups to think that they have a seat at the table?” Porat suggests doing research, and remaining transparent in the results, pointing to Google as an example. “Let’s use transparency to start a conversation,” she adds.
Coming back home, India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore, is also often criticised to be a boy’s club. Men seem to be holding most of the top positions across the board. But slow and steady seems to be the mantra in IT MNCs in India. From a time when there were no women at the CXO level, we now have names like Rekha Menon, India Chairman for Accenture, Vanitha Narayanan, MD of IBM India, Neelam Dhawan, MD of HP India, Aruna Jayanthi, CEO of Capgemini India, Kumud Srinivasan, President of Intel India, and Kirthiga Reddy, MD of Facebook India.
But like Ruth points out, be it the East or the West, it’s time we hire more women to create a thriving bottomline, which can strengthen diversity in conducting the business with varied perspectives, from both genders.
Watch her interview here.
Image courtesy: techstory.in
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