Not just on International Women's Day
“Who run the world? Girls.” I agree with Beyonce to some extent but I am certain that to build a truly agile organization you need strong women in leadership.
Only being able to reflect on those business we have been personally exposed to it is interesting to see how many wouldn’t even exist without these super women. Agile HRO is one such company if I think about our journey to date I have to start with the first super woman; my mother. An immigrant single mother of two who moved us to Australia for a safer life with more opportunity.
With no family in the country to help she worked 18 hour days to ensure we never went without. She, as do so many single moms and women in general, knew how to be agile; because she had to be. She knew that if a job wouldn’t work around her she would have create a business around her life. In writing this it is clear that I am one of the lucky ones as this blog / article / opinion contains six powerful women which were necessary to build one small but thriving global platform for the engagement of remote workers.
During this time of coarse I had a partner in crime, my sister, a successful athlete, physiotherapist and social entrepreneur who shows that the apple truly doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Most important to this case study is my business and life partner, my wife. Without her 14 years of experience in complex human resources leadership and policy creation we would have never created the framework to compliantly engage a global workforce for our clients quickly. And of course she did all this while raising my two beautiful daughters who kept us grounded remembering why creating this company helps parents around the world be there for their families more which is hopefully a positive contribution.
The unfortunate truth is that outside of companies like agile (50% female leadership) globally, women hold just 24% of senior leadership positions
The U.S. lags behind the global average at 21%, compared to China where women hold 51% of senior leadership slots. Women represent 45% of the S&P 500 workforce, but only 4% of the CEOs. Which brings me to our CEO and MD, a woman who epitomizes the values of agile, Jamie Haerewa. A demonstrated leader and social entrepreneur who refuses to accept that a company needs to be built in one location of bricks and mortor. Moving from China to Germany to Portugal all to ensure agile’s entities are meeting our strick 100% corporate governance and compliance requirements. She did this all amid the COVID Pandemic opening multiple countries despite the restriction on travel.
Before my daughters are in the workforce I hope that the world sees that to be successful more importance needs to be given to flexibility of engagement. A sometimes unique perspective that I believe women naturally have.
By Leon Farrant