Women’s Catalyst Conference Gives Awards and Boosts Morale

By Jada May

 

The morning session of The Women’s Catalyst Awards Conference — Future@Work — took place in the Hilton Hotel in Midtown, celebrating four organizations: Schneider Electric, Bank of America, Deutsche Post DHL and Lilly.

The event had two floors of thriving technology organizations, giving the women attendees an opportunity to network and learn. In the grand ballroom of the hotel, there were many women of different races and ethnicities. They were all motivated by a desire to be inspired. The morning hours put a spotlight on the four organizations, which will be receiving their awards on March 14.

Every year the Catalyst awards have been given out to help in the advancing of women in business, making it less male dominated, a day at a time. The event spreads the belief that “change is possible” and it reminds women that they have to take care of each other.

Bank of America’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Cynthia Bowman started off her speech with a moving testimony of what the bank stands for. “Being a great place to work means to have diversity and inclusion,” she said. The quote was not only moving but was the main topic of the conference — inclusion as a concept advancing women.

Bowman stood on stage in front of a podium, looking down at notes to make sure she brought up everything important to Bank of America in the context of the day. The first point had to do with people, including not only the workers but their clients. Another point was the programs that help women across racial and ethnic lines: the Women’s Executive Development Program, the Women’s Next Level Leadership Program and the Global Women’s Conference, which is actually open to both (all) genders.

Bowman touched on the topic of maternity leave, noting that her company give 26 weeks off to new moms. The company also offers up to $5,250 for tuition support. After speaking about Bank of America, she ended her segment stating, “We want the power to invest in women.”

Deutsche Post DHL Group representatives President of Human Resources Kimberlee Harrison and Val Huggee walked on stage all smiles, waving, before sitting on the couch. Huggee mentioned the communications and skills gap that she had while working at male-dominated workplaces, before joining DHL. She said, “Open communication really helped me at DHL.”

A topic that Harrison brought up was maternity leave at DHL, making special mention of Europe. In Europe, the maternity leave is longer than in America, and she and her allies want the countries to be at the same level. DHL has developed an app for their employees on maternity leave, so that they miss out on everything while they’re gone. At the end the two women were asked what advice they would give, and Harrison took the bait and said, “Know what you want, articulate it and tell everyone — and don’t let anyone tell you no.”

Zain Asher, Anchor of CNN International, and Catalyst President and CEO Lorraine Hariton discussed the “Future@Work” in ways meant to bring hope to those gathered. The two women talked about gender bias, as well as racial and ethnic bias, in the workplace. “Some aren’t aware of bias, but you can bring awareness,” Harison said. She added that men must be given the right tools to deal with the issue with fairness and honesty, because they often know so little about the problem.

Rachna Mukherjee of Schneider Electric (based in India) talked proudly about women’s advances. Schneider Electric is a multinational corporation that specializes in energy management, automation solutions, spanning hardware, software and services. The organization has not only increased women’s overall representation from 15.9 percent 20.8 percent (and increased senior management representation from 6.7 percent to 9.4 percent). It has also help to boost equality throughout a country. “I can tell you this year, India closed the gap,” she said, referring to the wage gap between men and women in India.

Walking onto the stage with a vibrate and positive attitude that couldn’t be missed was Caroline Wanga, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, as well as Human Resources Vice President, for  Target Corporation. She held a conversation with Michael E. McNamara, the company’s Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer. Target was the premier conference sponsor, supporting the Catalyst events for four consecutive years. The company is “extremely diverse, having 40 percent to 45 percent women,” said Wanga. Target’s goal is to be 50-50, she added.

McNamara encouraged women to get engineering degrees and go into STEM fields. He said, “I’m not trying to create a bias, I’m trying to fix one.”

The last company to walk on the stage was Lilly, a pharmaceutical company. Lily walked on as two people: Joy Fitzgerald, Chief Diversity Officer and David Ricks, Chairman and CEO. They said the company is continuing to grow the presence of women within its collective walls.

The daylong conference not only put businesses in the spotlight, but made a gathering of women more aware of the fight for equality and inclusion that is making great process in the corporate world.