The meeting focused on the critical role of gender diversity in leadership and its impact on corporate success, emphasizing that companies must adapt to a 'reputation economy' where social responsibility is paramount. Despite progress, with women holding 16.1% of management positions in Spain's IBEX 35, further efforts are needed to reach the 40% target set by European authorities for female board members. Companies are encouraged to implement equity and diversity policies to leverage the benefits of diverse teams and enhance business performance.

1. The highly topical subject of gender diversity and
leadership was discussed at the meeting Chief
Communication Officer and companies, committed
to equal opportunities and diversity held by
Woman’s Week foundation and the Association of
Directors of Communication in Spain (Dircom).
We are indeed living a shift of paradigm where
companies are more aware of their role as social
actors and the importance of it. Currently,
competition rules are not written by the products
or services that a company offers –as they can
easily be copied– but by corporations’ ability (and
willingness) to generate a positive impact on the
society. Today, business profits go hand in hand
with social benefits. This also explains the growing
importance of strategic and integrated management
of key intangible assets such as reputation, brand,
communication or public issues. We are immersed
in the so-called “reputation economy”.
For this reason, companies willing to successfully
navigate in this new reputation economy “need
leaders able to read the social context and deeply
understand key stakeholders’ expectations” since it
is them –customers, employees, shareholders and
the society in general– who decide, to a large extent,
the future of a company. A good example of this
argument can be seen in the results of Edelman’s
Trust Barometer: a 63 % of the participants refused
to buy products/services of distrusted companies.
Hence, not only have companies the power and
ability to change the world, but also the obligation
imposed by the society to do so by assuming a
greater responsibility for creating a better world,
also on gender equality.
As explained in the report Mujeres en los Consejos
de Administración y en la Alta Dirección en España,
quoting Robinson and Dechant (1997) and Burgess
and Tharenou (2002), the main advantages
of promoting diversity within corporations are
the greater capacity of attracting and retaining
talent, improvement of leadership and innovation
strategies and a closer approach to key stakeholders.
In short, a diversity team will allow bigger cost
savings and more rapid economic growth.
It is true that we are moving forward, in fact,
regarding the companies on the Madrid IBEX 35
stock exchange, 16.1 % of the management boards
are women, versus the 5.9 % of 8 years ago. Besides,
the regulatory body of the Spanish Stock Market,
CNMV, plans to increase this figure to 30 % by
2020. However, progress is rather slow and there
is still a long way to go. Despite all those advances,
we are still below the goal of 40 % female board
managers in companies set out by the European
Parliament and the European Commission. For
this reason, “nowadays, company policies that
guarantee equity and diversity are vital”, as stated
by José Romero, CCO at Vodafone Spain.
Promoting multidimensional teams has a positive impact on business outcomes. Female
presence in company’s executive boards is essential to build successful and long-term
oriented business projects.
Strategy Documents
I72/2015
Gender Diversity and
Leadership
Public Issues
Insights&Trends
This document was developed by Corporate Excellence – Centre for Reputation Leadership and among other sources contains references to the
statements made by Joaquín Mouriz, Brand, Communication and Marketing director at Cetelem; José Romero Chief Communication Officer
at Vodafone and Member of the Board of Directors of Dircom; Pilar Suárez Inclán Chief Institutional Communication Officer and CSR at
Reale Seguros and Rosa María Calaf, journalist and ex correspondent for TVE during the meeting Chief Communication Officer and companies,
committed to equal opportunities and diversity held on 5 May at Casa de Vacas, Madrid.

2. Insights & Trends 2
Gender Diversity
and Leadership
There is no doubt that diversity will redefine
leadership in the 21st century. ECOFIN and
Madrid Woman’s Week analyse every year different
aspects on this issue. In 2011, along with CESMA,
they published a report, in which it was concluded
that women add an extra value to resilience,
efficiency and efficacy to the companies where
they are involved in decision-making processes.
As Pilar Suárez Inclán, director of Institutional
Communication and CSR at Reale Seguros, “we
cannot set aside half the talent of the world”.
Women represent almost 50 % of the total
population and more than two million women have
entered the labour market. Therefore, it is about
incorporating complementary and not exclusive
talent, about “promoting equity between each other
and not against each other”. In fact, the main idea
of the concept of diversity is to optimize human
resources presented by heterogeneous groups, this is
to say, groups that are diverse regarding the gender,
age, race or nationality of their members.
Prestigious and capable professionals regardless
of their personal conditions should compose a
management board. Women are not less able
to lead a company because of their gender. The
discussion is not, however, about that but more
about the benefits of having a diverse team. Several
researches prove that a diverse composition of the
management team will bring many positive benefits
to the company. A diverse team can offer a more
enlightening debate; there are different perspectives
to consider and, consequently, a greater source of
ideas and innovation. Specifically, gender diversity
allows companies to better the needs of all their
employees who, additionally, are one of the key
stakeholders group for any organization. Therefore,
policies that are in tune with this new reality can
be more easily implemented to pave the road for
a greater awareness of equality of rights and help
reconcile working and family life: fair wage policies,
working hours, selection and promotion processes
and so on.
In this sense, Romero defended that, apart from
the traditional barriers to the entry of women
in the management board: recent incorporation
into the employment market/ lack of experience,
lower visibility in the management networks,
problems to balance work and family; there are
also cultural barriers. Although the company is
not discriminatory as it is now including positive-
discrimination measures within its values, our
society is still discriminatory in many ways, and
a good example is the different interpretation of
maternity and paternity responsibilities.
Thus, labour and family conciliation and awareness
on this issue are the main pillars on which to
start building a fair and equal society. We need
more female leaders to accelerate the change of
mindset that our society requires. In this regard,
«Companies
have the
obligation to
generate a
positive impact
on the society
and help create
a better world»
Figure 1: Measures to promote diversity
Source: PwC, 2013.
Higher involvement of the CR&N in the
applicant selection for board direction
Existance of at least one woman among the applicants
in the selection process for board direction
Setting improvement goals for diversity
in the company
Monitoring of the career of female leaders with high
potential by the CR&N
Existance of a minimum number of female applicants
in the succession plans for board direction
1 2 3
3,5
3,2
3,2
2,8
2,3
4

3. Insights & Trends 3
Gender Diversity
and Leadership
communication plays an essential role. Fortune
500 created a ranking of the most successful female
leaders because, according to its data, women only
represent the 7.5 % of highest salaries (versus 92.5 %
of men). Last April, the BBC ignited the debate
by publishing an article about the first image that
Google shows when searching “CEO”, this is, a
Barbie. As stated before, there is still a long way to
go until “an event like this one won’t make any sense
because equity would be already a reality”, as Joaquín
Mouriz, CCO at Cetelem Spain defended.
In this new context where companies have the
obligation to generate a positive impact on the
society, CCOs play an essential role because of their
strategic value in leadership. They have the ability
to “change things in companies” by promoting
a corporate communication based on an “active
listening” to society. Companies must not forget that
their stakeholders decide, at the end, if a company is
to be trusted or not.
Chief Communication Officers are responsible
of, in the words of Sebastián Cebrián, Dircom’s
chief executive, projecting the company’s image,
communicating its values and influence the media.
CCOs are then responsible of the management
of intangible assets such as reputation, brand
or corporate values but now they also need to
stand as key equality officers. It is important to
understand that in communication, also corporate
communication, language is not innocent at all
and, as Rosa María Calaf said, the image of women
depend on how we refer to them and how we want
to show them.
«Gender
diversity
will redefine
leadership in the
21st century.
It offers an
extra value
to resilience,
efficiency and
efficacy to
companies»
Figure 2: Female presence in Spanish management boards (percentage of women in
the board)
Figure 3: Evolution of women and male executive directors average
Source: Spencer Stuart Board Index (quoted in Mujeres en los Consejos de Administración y en la Alta
Dirección en España, Centro de Gobierno Corporativo – IE Business School, 2013).
Source: Centro de Gobierno Corporativo – IE Business School, 2013.
ninguna
mujer
0,0
5,0
10,0
15,0
20,0
25,0
30,0 29,2
21,7
31,1
15,1
1,9 0,9
35,0
1-9% 10-19% 20-29% 30-39% 40%-_%
2004
0,0
2,0
4,0
6,0
8,0
10,0
12,0
14,0
16,0
14,00
0,4
2005
13,37
0,3
2006
0,5
2007
13,53
0,9
2008
1,2
2009
1,5
2010
Male average at the
board
1,4
Female average at
the board
2011
1,0
2012
2,1
12,77 13,26 12,97 12,17 13,31 11,89

4. Leading by
reputation
©2015, Corporate Excellence – Centre for Reputation Leadership
A foundation established by major companies aiming to excel in the management of intangible assets and facilitate promotion of strong
brands with a good reputation and a capacity to compete on the global markets. Our objective is to become the driving force, which would
lead and consolidate professional reputation management as a strategic asset, fundamental for building value of companies around the world.
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