Banco Santander created the W50 Program in partnership with UCLA Anderson Executive Education to equip the next generation of global women leaders for service as board directors. Recently, Banco Santander invited 50 women to the UCLA campus for the three-phase learning experience “Preparing Our Women Board Members of Tomorrow.”
Private finance operations specialist Maya Hennerkes participated in the program and blogged, “Training women early in their careers is not only a technical advantage, but also a confidence booster. Supporting more women on their way to leadership and giving them exposure to firms and people outside of their immediate networks will ‘grow the pipeline’ for board-ready women.”
Participants selected from the Santander Universities Network are provided developmental tools, training and knowledge to improve productivity, and they learn the skills to retain talent and ensure the future success of organizations.
Hennerkes remarked the extent to which Latin America trails Europe and the U.S. in terms of female corporate board appointments, with only 6.4 percent. She distilled four key lessons from the experience, noting, for instance, that “women with a high profit and loss responsibility are comparatively more often promoted to leadership positions within their firms and thus become interesting to corporate boards.”
She closed by quoting Anderson Executive Education Associate Dean Kelly Bean, who said, “We need first movers that bring down stereotypes which hinder women to enter the board room. We don’t need tokenism. Real diversity needs to become an integral part of the corporate strategy.”
Read Hennerkes’ full blog posted on the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) website
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