IN THE PRESS 2008
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW MAY 2008
BOOK REVIEW
“Companies that understand women will be better led and closer to their customers. The first third of the book presents a formidable array of research and case studies to support that thesis. Even if you are familiar with the field, their review makes lively reading, including as it does an observation by a senior French executive that mixing the sexes makes “les femmes moins chiantes et les hommes moins cons” (women less bitchy and men less dumb). But what’s especially valuable is the authors’ analysis of where companies go wrong in managing women…“
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE APR 4th
“Why and how to improve women’s place in business leadership are the themes of “Why Women Mean Business.” The authors – Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, a consultant and founder of the European Professional Women’s Network, and Alison Maitland, a business journalist – cite research from a variety of sources to bolster their double-barreled conclusion: “Women are a huge talent and a huge market space,” and discovering and exploiting the latter “will probably depend – at least in part – on being able appropriately to manage and promote the former.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/02/yourmoney/mcolumn05.php
BUSINESS DIGEST
Dossier RH Juin 2008
- Book review
Mixité: Enjeu stratégique et non une affaire de femmes
- Fiche Pratique
Les sept étapes d’une stratégie de mixité efficace, Réalisée sur la base de « Sept étapes pour réussir la mise en oeuvre », Womenomics
Marre des discours sur la mixité qui répandent l’idée que « toute forme de communication entre hommes et femmes est un événement de proportion planétaire » (Vénus vs Mars) ? Voici les grandes lignes d’un ouvrage plus en nuances, qui invitent les entreprises à devenir « bilingues », capables d’écouter la voix des hommes et celle des femmes, pour enfin féminiser les plus hautes sphères du pouvoir organisationnel.
EN FRANCAIS...
FRANCE INFO APR 24th
INTERVIEW BY Sylvie Johnsson
Le Livre de l’Economie
“La croissance dépend aussi des femmes… Et les promouvoir, c’est l’intérêt des entreprises. D’abord parce qu’elles représentent une réserve de talents. Ensuite parce que ce sont elles qui prennent la majorité des décisions d’achat.“
http://www.france-info.com/spip.php?article126542&theme=22&sous_theme=23
Articles parus dans:
Le Monde du 14 Mai 2008 Mixité
“ Womenomics, c’est du brutal. “
Elle du 26 Juillet 2008
Devenir Chef est-ce pour Moi ?
Le Parisien du 30 Juin 2008
Les femmes sont I’avenir de I’economie
Les Echos du 28 Mai 2008
dans : Le livre du jour, La Femme comme levier de croissance
Le Nouvel Economiste du 31 janvier
Caroline CASTETS
L’Express du 31 janvier
Brève de Valérie LION
Elle Belgique mars
Aurélie Koch
Les Echos du 7 mars
Arielle Goncalves
La Tribune du 1er avril
Entreprise & Carrières du 27 Mai/2 Juin 2008
“ La mixité, un enjeu économique pour l’entreprise “
futuribles septembre 2008
Espérons qu’un ouvrage traduit de l’anglais, dont la bibliographie est anglo-saxonne, ce qui est toujours une caution en matière de management, persuadera enfin les dirigeants français que « les femmes ne sont pas le problème mais la solution ».
DIRIGEANT du 17 Septembre 2008
“Avivah Wittenberg-Cox et Alison Maitland proposent une passionnante enquête à travers le monde sur la relation des femmes à l’entreprise et sur leur poids dans la consommation.”
Le Temps 23 mai 2008
“C’est un enjeu économique, à traiter comme tel par les entreprises soucieuses de leur croissance et de leurs performances financières,…, ce qu’elles démontrent dans leur ouvrage,”
http://www.letemps.ch/emploi/affichearticle.asp?artid=232438
CONTACTE PRESSE FRANCE:
Anne-Marie Bouteiller
+33 6 61 73 49 67
BFM Interview Hedwige Chevrillon, 24 avril
Ecoutez la ci-dessous dans la video youtube:
Financial Times Deutschland 16/07/08
Mehr Chefinnen bringen mehr Gewinn
“Womenomics” und wie man sie nutzt
Das Buch untersucht, warum viele aktuelle Herangehensweisen an die Gleichberechtigung nicht funktionieren und warum heute eine neue Sichtweise nötig ist. Die Autorinnen nennen sie “Womenomics” – die ökonomische Revolution, die durch das Potenzial und die Kraft begabter Frauen ausgelöst wird.
The JOURNAL ONLINE May 2008
The Journal of the Law Society of Scotland
I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to think strategically about current trends in the economic and employment markets.
Ethical Corporation Magazine, April 2008
Strategy & Management: Diversity – Why boards don’t get women
“European firms say they treat men and women exactly the same, but that is precisely the problem, say the authors of a new book about women at work.”
Raising the gender-equality bar in the workplace
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland’s book takes a refreshing twist on the mobility issues women face in the workplace. Rather than portraying the promotion of women to more senior roles as part of an altruistic approach, the authors argue that companies need to promote more women to the upper echelons because it will ultimately improve their bottom line.
Waking up to Womenomics
FINANCIAL TIMES MAR 13th
by Evelyne Sevin, Egon Zehnder International
The authors try to offer a new perspective, taking men’s views into consideration through extensive interviews. They move the debate on when they say that “[womenomics] is a business issue and not solely a women issue”, or when detailing the limitations of diversity management by explaining the differences between gender and diversity. The point is that women are both different and equal and to this end they call for “bilingualism” at work – women and men bring different qualities to work, but of equal value to the company.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a6a3a27a-f11e-11dc-a91a-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
ELLE Belgium March 2008
A 3-page, in-depth profile of Avivah Wittenberg-Cox (in French)
entitled:
“La Femme Qui a l’Oreille des Hommes”
FINANCIAL TIMES FEB 28th
The greatest neglected resource in business
by columnist Richard Donkin
_Women have become probably the greatest neglected resource in
business, both in their market potential as consumers and in their
productive potential as employees… It is a fundamental weakness of
business models that were designed for a male-dominated world… As
the book suggests, we need a revolution in thinking_
http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=Alison+Maitland&y=0&aje=true&x=0&id=080228000088&ct=0
FINANCIAL TIMES FEB 26th
Columnist Michael Skapinker writes:
_If companies want to succeed they will have to come around to women’s
way of doing things, the authors argue. Faced with falling
populations, companies in Europe will need more women in senior
management … an innovative and stimulating book._
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/de48e4c8-e3b9-11dc-8799-0000779fd2ac.html
THE SUNDAY TIMES Feb 10th
“Do women lack ambition because of their genetic make-up? Is the glass ceiling self-imposed? Absolutely not, says Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, whose book Why Women Mean Business (Jossey-Bass, £16.99), co-written with the journalist Alison Maitland, was published last month. It’s down to a phenomenon she calls “manonomics”. “It’s not nasty or deliberate,” she says, “but codes of working were simply developed in a different age, with a different family model, when there were no women in the room.” High-achieving women tend to have children in their thirties, she points out, but the average company identifies key potential in its workforce between the ages of 30 and 35, which she sees as a disaster for female advancement”
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article3340952.ece
THE TIMES Feb 6th
“But what if men were to take on the job of demolition [of the glass ceiling]? Forget issues of equality and social justice. What if they could be persuaded that, in the interests of their own health and wealth, it was time to get serious about the issues? That is the question posed and answered in Why Women Mean Business.”
writes Yvonne Roberts in a large, 2-page spread in http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article3313473.ece
THE GUARDIAN Feb 5th
A full-page article by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland
in The Guardian’s FINANCIAL section entitled:
Why Women in Business became the Solution, not the Problem
“Numbers of top female executives are failing yet evidence suggests they may hold the key to corporate success.“
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/feb/05/business.genderissues
How to sell to women
Report on Small Business spoke to the authors at their recent Canadian book launch in Toronto to explain why many current approaches to gender have not worked and why business needs a new perspective.
The podcast of the interview (14 mn) can be download on:
THE SCOTSMAN Feb 22nd
“Maitland and Wittenberg-Cox call this “womenomics”. They point to statistics such as the fact that women make 80 per cent of consumer purchasing decisions, and a recent UK government report that suggested the country could gain £23 billion by better harnessing women’s skills. They argue that no business, large or small, can afford to ignore the growing economic power and potential of women in the 21st century. While such ideas may have some traditionalists up in arms, the book is littered with ringing endorsements from senior British business figures – and yes, they are mainly men. Larry Hirst, chief executive of IBM UK, is quoted as saying: “The emerging force of women in the 21st century is part of major social and economic change, which has to be acknowledged by any organisation looking for a competitive edge.”“
http://living.scotsman.com:80/features/-Women-mean-business.3789984.jp
MANAGEMENT TODAY Jan 31st
Review of Why Women Mean Business by
Amanda Wallis, MD
US Trust, Bank of America
Private Wealth Management
“This is an ambitious book, spanning a wide range of topics related to women in business and, as such, is an excellent primer for anyone interested in this area. It’s also well researched and contains a useful bibliography. Topics range from the economic power of women as consumers, the answer to the talent shortage that women represent, what makes women different from men in leadership styles, to why traditional approaches to addressing gender disparity have failed. It also examines the key phases of feamle career cycles and gives specific advice to companies on the ‘seven steps to successful implemenation’ of a gender initiative.”
PEOPLE MANAGEMENT Feb 7th
Book review:
“Business leaders will benefit from the compelling case studies that demonstrate the bottom-line investment returns achieved by organisations with women in top leadership positions… HR professionals and diversity specialists zould also benefit from the book’s evidence-based approach… Perhaps the most important message is that being “women-friendly” is about being “people friendly”, which is essential in attracting and retaining talent capable of delivering competitive advantage in the 21st century._”
Le Second Pouvoir
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox quoted in
LE NOUVEL ECONOMISTE January 31
an article by Caroline Castet
“Pour sortir de ces shemas, les managers doivent enfin comprendre que la problematique des femmes ne releve plus d’une question ethique mais d’une necessite economique“
SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY Feb 10th
In an article entitled “Our workplaces are the problem, not our women”
“At last someone is talking sense, and we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s a woman.”
http://business.scotsman.com/industry/Our-workplaces-are-the-problem.3762414.jp
THE NEW STATESMEN FEB 7th
“Among explanations offered for the persistent low representation of women on the boards of Britain’s FTSE-100 companies is that women miss out on the informal chats men have at work. In a new book, Why Women Mean Business, a top banking CEO explains that these determine the mood of a firm, build mutual trust, and determine new leaders: unsurprisingly, men. So, should we dictate who talks to whom, and when? No, let’s be radical. A century after the first mass protests for women’s suffrage in this country, there are just three female FTSE-100 company chief executives. Ninety years after women were allowed to stand for parliament, they still make up only 20 per cent of MPs. We could change it at a stroke. As we have noted here before, since Norway imposed minimum quotas for women on boards, 36 per cent of its directors are female.“
The chartered Institute of Marketing
Book Review
The authors put forward a well researched and compelling case for change.
IN BUSINESS (CASS BUSINESS SCHOOL)
Article by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland
“Companies can gain competitive advantage by adapting to the force that women have become, as employees, consumers and investors. Requiring women to fit the traditional male corporate mould has not proved a success – and is increasingly a liability.”
LAUNCH OF MEN'S CORNER at THE WOMEN's FORUM
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland introduced their upcoming book Why Women Mean Business by creating, in partnership with Bain & Co., The Men’s Corner at the Women’s Forum in Deauville last October.
This innovative concept builds on the idea that Olivier Marchal, the head of Bain & Co. France develops in the book: “in improving gender diversity, women may hold the key, but men generally still control the lock.“ So we gave the floor over to CEOs who responded and debated to Avivah and Alison’s presentation of the book’s key themes.
The event’s four sessions, which welcomed CEOs like Carlos Ghosn of Renault-Nissan and Gerald Lema of Baxter Asia, as well as the Dean of INSEAD Frank Brown, was a runaway success. Overflowing from its assigned room, the sessions had to migrate to the ‘James Bond’ room. As Alison Maitland amusingly noted, he also had a little trouble retaining and promoting his leading ladies…
WOMENOMICS
“Forget China, India and the internet: economic growth is driven by women”
The Economist
April 2006