LONDON/NEW YORK – December 7, 2016 – Egon Zehnder, in partnership with the Paradigm for Parity℠ coalition, announced its commitment to achieving gender parity throughout the leadership advisory’s global employee base by 2030. The executive and Board search and leadership advisory firm joins a 27 member founding body pledging to achieve gender parity across all levels of corporate leadership in the US and beyond.
Joining a coalition including Accenture, Adecco, AstraZeneca, Bank of America, Cargill, The Coca Cola Company, LinkedIn, McKinsey, Nordstrom, SAP and TD Industries, Egon Zehnder has pledged to support the Paradigm for Parity’s 5-Point Action Plan for organizations to accelerate the pace of change in gender parity across senior executive roles. This unique agenda defines a mindset change and introduces bold and specific actions that when taken together and implemented concurrently will catalyze and enable business executives to build a more robust pipeline for senior leadership positions and Board appointments.
“Paradigm for Parity℠ builds on the inclusivity and diversity goals that Egon Zehnder has embraced and operationalized across our firm, and manifest in our advisory with clients worldwide,” said Rajeev Vasudeva, Chief Executive Officer, Egon Zehnder. “This coalition uniquely sets forth a constructive playbook for achieving gender parity by actively and thoughtfully enabling a path for more women to progress into executive leadership roles and ultimately reach their highest potential,” he added.
Egon Zehnder’s Paradigm for Parity℠ pledge builds on the firm’s existing global initiatives aimed at promoting gender equity across the executive leadership ranks. A sampling of these programs include Leaders & Daughters, focused on cultivating the next generation of women leaders, the “25 by 2025” initiative in the UK calling for 25 female FTSE100 CEOs by 2025, and the Global Board Diversity Analysis, which studies worldwide gender diversity progress in the boardroom with a call to action to increase broader leadership opportunities for women and diversity at the highest leadership levels.
As a private partnership, Egon Zehnder’s diversity agenda has positively accelerated, with half of all new consultants over the last two years added being female. In the last six years, the overall share of women in the consultant pool has grown to over 30 percent and the share of women in firm leadership roles has equally increased.
Vasudeva added, “Leadership today is about driving a shift from individual excellence to building a culture of teams and collaborative success. This will only be achieved if we cultivate more diverse leaders to impact positive change.”
Click here to learn more about the Paradigm for Parity℠ coalition and join in the movement.
About Egon Zehnder
Since 1964, Egon Zehnder has been at the forefront of defining great leadership in the face of changing economic conditions, emerging opportunities and evolving business goals. With more than 600 consultants in 64 offices and 36 countries around the globe, the firm works closely with public and private corporations, family-owned enterprises and nonprofit and government agencies to provide board advisory services, CEO and leadership succession planning, executive search and assessment, and leadership development. For more information, visit www.egonzehnder.com and follow the firm on LinkedIn and Twitter.
About the Paradigm for Parity℠ Movement
The Paradigm for Parity℠ coalition is comprised of CEOs, senior executives, founders, board members and business academics who are committed to achieving a new norm in corporate leadership: one in which women and men have equal power, status, and opportunity.
The coalition created the Paradigm for Parity℠ 5-Point Action Plan for corporations to accelerate the pace of gender equity in senior executive roles. This unique agenda defines bold and specific actions that, taken together and simultaneously implemented as a package, will catalyze change and enable today’s business executives to secure the best leaders of tomorrow. Visit www.paradigm4parity.com or follow us on Twitter using @p4parity to learn more about this exciting initiative.
For media inquiries, please contact:
GLOBAL MEDIA
Hilary Crnkovich
Head of Global Marketing and Communications
T: 312-260-8978
E: hilary.crnkovich@egonzehnder.com