Corporate Australia has an opportunity to leverage one of the country’s “greatest untapped resources”, if it can accelerate change in support of culturally and racially diverse women in leadership.
Chief Executive Women issued a call on Thursday for leaders across big business to take action to support culturally diverse women in the workforce, highlighting the need to address gender and race to support more women in leadership.
And CEW has also stated its own commitment to gathering data across its membership and setting meaningful targets to drive greater diversity within the organisations. It concedes that it has it own work to do.
With almost half of Australians now having a parent born overseas and 5.5 million Australians speaking a language other than English, according to the 2021 Census, there’s a large pool of untapped leadership talent in culturally and racially diverse women.
Launching the report in Sydney, CEW President Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz led a conversation with Macquarie Group CEO Shemara Wikramanayake, and Stockland CEO Tarun Gupta. They called on more leaders to take action on amplifying a conversation about cultural and racial diversity while also noting the value of building diverse teams and role of data in measuring progress.
Called Unlocking Leadership: Conversations on Gender and Race in Corporate Australia 2023, the report emphasises how leaders need to discuss “women and race”. With data on racially diverse women in leadership limited in Australia, the report declares a need for an honest and open conversation that includes safe spaces and approaches for disclosing and collecting data.
It comes as progress on women in executive leadership at ASX 300 companies has been visible – albeit slow. But the same can’t be said for progress on cultural and racial diversity, as there is not enough reporting and measuring of such data.
As the report states, the extensive research and action over the past 20 years or so at achieving gender equal workplaces has tended to treat women as a “homogenous group”, resulting in benefits flowing more readily to “to women from the dominant white population.”
Dr Marlene Kanga AO, a CEW member and project steering committee member, said Australia will miss out on unlocking the best leadership talent if it fails to address some of the barriers culturally diverse women face.
“With Australia facing a challenging economic climate and critical workforce shortages, businesses need to tap into the full talent pool and culturally diverse women are one of our greatest untapped resources,” she said.
“Culturally diverse women leaders are a force to be reckoned with. As a nation, we must work together to harness this talent, and embrace culturally diverse women’s leadership in our workforces and across our economy.”
She also spoke about Australia’s geographical location in proximity to Asia, home to seven of the world’s largest economies by 2030. The country’s strong multicultural workforce being a competitive advantage at a time of economic uncertainty and massive geopolitical shifts, she said.
“As we address global challenges like climate change and rapid technological advancements that have no geographical borders, our national interest and economic prosperity will depend on how well we harness our resources and continue to attract the global flows of ideas, capital and people and maximise their potential.”
“Importantly, in the global war for talent, we should note that millennials are demanding diverse and inclusive workplaces. This is critical to attracting and retaining them.”
Exploring the experiences of culturally and racially diverse women in senior leadership roles at Australia’s ASX 300 companies, while building on existing reports from Diversity Council of Australia and MindTribes, the new CEW paper shares the actions leaders can take for addressing them the barriers culturally and racially diverse women faced — with a firm “double-glazed glass ceiling” in place, according to Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz.
Lloyd-Hurwitz said leaders must reflect on how they can be allies to support women’s leadership, highlighting the actions they can take to support culturally diverse women.
“Things like having a conversation about race at leadership tables, improving organisational data gathering on cultural diversity in the workplace and actively sponsoring the many highly capable culturally diverse women and men to accelerate change that benefits everyone,” she said.
CEW five actions leaders can take to support more women in leadership including leading conversations about cultural and racial diversity, role modelling curiosity and self reflection, gathering data and measuring progress on goals, investing in sponsorships and building culturally safe workplaces that aim to break down systemic barriers.
As Dr Marlene Kanga said in her speech launching the report, tapping this great resource is a necessary reality – and a challenge that should be taken on. “We would be clever to welcome it,” she said.