Ask Me About the Unusual Structure of My Business & This Is What I'll Tell You

I’m a woman, a feminist, a scholar of social science, the leader of intO, a worldwide business that’s powered by a team of multi-skilled women and men around the world. The pursuit of gender equality is important to each of us at intO, which is reflected by our collective ambitions, the way the organisation is structured, and how we operate. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise to find me thinking and writing about International Women’s Day (IWD) in advance of this weekend. Sunday’s date, the 8th March, is an annual recurrence in the calendar that invites us to both celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and encourage both men and women to take action to accelerate gender equality. 

There’s still a lot of work to do. The 2020 Gender Gap report, released by the Worldwide Economic Forum, suggests that we won’t see gender parity for at least another 99.5 years. That will be well beyond my lifetime and probably the lifetime of my children, too. Other statistics from the report are just as sobering: 

• Women have secured just 25% of available parliamentary positions, and nine countries have no female representation at all
• For the past 50 years, 85 countries have had male-only heads of state
• There are 72 countries where women are barred from opening bank accounts or obtaining credit
• There is no country where men spend the same amount of time on unpaid work (such as childcare) as women. In countries where the ratio is lowest, it is still 2:1
• Globally, only 55% of women (aged 15-64) are engaged in the labour market as opposed to 78% of men

This last point concerning economic participation and opportunity is quite shocking, particularly as it’s the one area where progress has regressed. Why is this? Three key reasons have been highlighted: women have greater representation in roles that are being automated, not enough women are entering professions where wage growth is the most pronounced (in 2019, for example, women only accounted for 17% of workers in the UK technology sector), and women still face the time-worn problems of having less access to capital and bearing the brunt of insufficient care infrastructure when it comes to family. 

For many centuries, women were excluded from professional roles, professional training and development and higher education. And, as Matthew Syed points out in his brilliant book, Rebel Ideas, ‘This was socially unjust for women - but it also dramatically reduced the creativity of men. By severing males from the insights that could have been brought by half the population - the diverse perspectives, information and discoveries - the collective brain was serially diminished. Whatever else we may say about the pace of innovation over the course of human history, it would have been dramatically faster if the idea network had included women.’ 

Achieving gender parity - particularly in relation to economic participation and opportunity - isn’t an ambition that’s rooted in just fairness alone. It also has a fundamental bearing on whether economies and societies prosper. In our increasingly globalised society, that means that gender parity is an issue that affects all of us; not only people living in specific regions of the world, and definitely not only women. 

‘Equality is not a women’s issue. It’s a business issue. Gender equality is essential for economies and communities to thrive. A gender-equal world can be healthier, wealthier and more harmonious.’

www.internationalwomensday.com

The primary ways I feel I can contribute to the movement supported by IWD are as a mother, as a scholar and as a business leader. When intO was founded, I had a very clear ambition to structure a worldwide business in a way that would empower both women and men to continue to develop their expertise and work with world class clients while giving them the freedom and ability to care for their families. This ambition reflected not only my personal values but also my desire for the business to excel, because equality isn’t just a problem to fix. It’s the solution. 

The business case for gender parity has been rigorously researched and proven time and time again. In 2015, McKinsey estimated that true gender balance in the workplace could add $28 trillion to the global economy, including ￡150 billion to the UK economy, and found that more diverse companies outperformed their less-diverse competitors by 21 per cent. This makes an encouraging case for equality, but we need to be vigilant about statements like this because there is also a danger that they begin to commodify gender. As business leaders, we shouldn’t only be embracing equality because it promises bigger profits. The subject is often presented as a business issue because businesses have the power to lead their teams in the right direction. But we mustn’t forget that gender equality is a fundamental human right. It’s bigger than the balance sheet.

At intO…

• We help young women by lowering the ladder, enabling them to gain essential experience and start their careers with confidence and full of inspiration. Currently, we have two student interns (Camila in Colombia and Julia in London). It’s our objective, as a business, to ensure that by the time our interns graduate, they will be able to take two leaps forward in their careers. We want to forge equality in our industry by nurturing the next generation of women leaders
• Every team member at intO is able to work remotely and flexibly (even those who work full time). This helps everyone to manage work and commuting, alongside family care and other activities they care about. We take this one step further, too, and encourage them to work from wherever they want in the world. This means that intO talented women can forge successful careers while remaining close to the community that supports their wellbeing
• intO offers flexibility, paid parental leave and additional holidays that are often essential for mums and dads and we help senior women not only returning to work after maternity leave but also in taking on new challenges that allow them to grow
• Closing a gender pay gap will never have to be on intO’s agenda
• We encourage and support the many women at intO who are activists and who actively forge the way towards equality by being 'difficult women'
• We are adding 'equality' recruitment criteria as we believe intO's women and men need to be feminists
• at intO we also favour and support partners and clients that align with this feminist values and equality for all

We need to showcase and celebrate women majority teams and business leaders that drive a feminist and equality-led agenda. Equality, for some, boils down to a numbers game (the achievement of a satisfactory 50/50 employee ratio and no gender pay gap), but it’s hardly as simple as that. Organisations need to be run with equality positioned at the forefront of their mission so that employees can thrive and balance other responsibilities that emerge as they move through the different phases of their lives. In order to keep making progress, we also need to ensure that we’re cognisant of the full breadth of gender inequalities. Going forward, we need to challenge and educate gender binary perspectives and replace them with attitudes that respect and embrace gender fluidity. We all have a part to play.

The IWD campaign theme for 2020 is #EachforEqual and is founded on a notion of ‘collective individualism’. It should remind us of the fact that whilst we are all part of a whole, our individual mindsets and behaviours have an impact on larger society. We’re all responsible for our own actions and how they influence others around us and we can all choose to challenge stereotypes and biases, broaden our perceptions and learn about the experiences and achievements of others. A similar principle guides the design research work we do at intO: local, cultural attitudes, behaviours and trends influence worldwide patterns of behaviour and vice versa. So, on a daily basis, the team at intO witnesses the notion behind #EachforEqual working in practise. Collectively and together with our clients and partners, we all add up to a sum that’s greater than its parts, enabling us, together, to influence change around the world. 

International Women’s Day, this year, is encouraging us to share a picture of ourselves striking the #EachforEqual pose to raise awareness of the campaign. As in past years, it invites us to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and to take action to accelerate women’s equality. 

This year, I want to celebrate Nahid A Siddiqui, Chief Executive at inSights and our Bangladeshi Local Expert. She is disrupting gender inequality by carefully navigating social constraints that prevent personal economic autonomy by introducing mobile banking in Bangladesh. Her project is enabling female entrepreneurs in the region - and beyond – by providing access to smartphone technology, business training and digital outsourcing opportunities.

My pledge for action in 2020 will be focused on communicating the ways in which intO enables its talented, global team of women and men to balance their careers with caring for their families and pursuing other creative and activist pursuits. More businesses need to realise that inflexible working environments are driving away talented women from their organisations and industries. Remote working, part-time and shared roles, flexible locations, paid family leave and flexible start and end times - for women and men - are vital changes that need to become commonplace if we’re to combat inequality. We also need to stamp out the social and cultural stigma that’s associated with the rights of men to work flexibly and take paternity leave. Equality for men is as beneficial to women as equality for women is to men. Over the course of the year, I’ll be seeking opportunities to speak and write about how I envisage the future of work, and how intO is structured to align with this vision. I’ll also be welcoming any business leader who wishes to find out more about intO’s organisational culture to get in touch. I’m happy to share information about our journey, the tools and policies that help us, the challenges we’ve had to overcome and the benefits we reap. 

Attitudes toward gender shape organisational culture, leadership, ideas of success, profitability, and how innovation itself is strategised, designed and practised. By acting together we can enable positive change in the industries and sectors we work in, and indeed, the world beyond.