Thought leaders across the web

Walmart’s legal team is busier than it would like to be. They just won a nationwide sexual discrimination lawsuit, settled by the Supreme Court in their favor. But, their troubles may be far from over, as similar, though smaller, suits on the way – possibly a lot of them. What’s really happening, Walmart? Walmart won [...]

What will it take for men to get it? In the last five years, women and minorities actually lost ground in U.S. corporate boardroom representation, despite solid evidence that greater women’s representation in corporate leadership correlates directly with improved business performance. A 2010 McKinsey study finds that across all industry sectors, companies with the most [...]

Next month I will be the proud recipient of two honors: the “Isabel Benham Award” (Women’s Bond Club) and the “Woman of the Year Award” (Financial Women’s Association). I’m more than usually appreciative. I’ve held high-profile jobs and delivered impressed results, but I know about banishment and lonely struggle. Like many working moms I’ve grappled [...]

Mao Zedong may have famously proclaimed that “women hold up half the sky,” but many of today’s Chinese career women feel their high-flying ambitions have feet of clay. “Yeah, we hold up half the sky,” recently quipped a female senior manager for a multinational pharmaceutical company, “but there are 5,000 years of history dragging us [...]

This post was co-authored with Ripa Rashid. In the decades since Deng Xiaoping instituted market reform, millions of women have profitably followed Deng’s dictate that “to get rich is glorious.” Half of the 14 billionaires on Forbes magazine’s 2010 list of the world’s richest self-made women are from mainland China. Chinese women in powerful business [...]

To all foot soldiers in the equal-opportunity-diversity-and-inclusion revolution: It’s time to vote with your feet. Celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8 by sitting down and slipping your shoes off for a moment of relief. The ancient Chinese practice of foot-binding was imposed on women. The modern fashion practice of wearing toe-squeezing high-heeled shoes has [...]

This post was co-authored with Melinda Marshall. In real life, as in the film Black Swan, Natalie Portman wants to win not only the leading role, but also its attendant accolades. And on February 27, she may well fulfill her ambition: the 29-year-old Harvard grad is within a jeté of the Oscar for Best Actress. [...]

Hectored by the blogosphere, mocked by the press, UBS has recanted its 43-page employee primer on how to appear polished, proficient, and professional. As a result, a lot of up-and-comers badly in need of grooming guidance simply won’t get it. The brouhaha over the Swiss bank’s dress code manual, which dictates protocol on everything from [...]

For decades, women have been knocking on the door to the C-suite but getting little or no response. They finally learned the magic password. More than 200 women and men braved wind and snow recently to attend the launch of “The Sponsor Effect: Breaking Through the Last Glass Ceiling,” a new study by the Center [...]

This post was co-authored with Ripa Rashid. Hardly a day goes by, it seems, without India making global economic headlines. But there’s one aspect of the “India Inc.” miracle that remains a well-guarded secret: the rapid rise in the workplace of educated, ambitious Indian women. Many Westerners continue to view India as a place where [...]