Thought leaders across the web

Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Ripa Rashid, authors of “Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets: Why Women Are the Solution.” Click here to view full post and listen to podcast Additional resource: Winning the War for Talent book review

The millions of women who have poured into the workforce in emerging markets over the past decade are used to overcoming obstacles but few are more difficult, infuriating, and demeaning than their daily commute. Corporations hoping to boost their bottom lines in these expanding markets may think that their obligations to their employees are limited [...]

It’s generally assumed that the top graduates of China’s universities will want to work for multinational corporations and that foreign employers can have their pick of the best and brightest. But that’s no longer the case — especially for some of China’s smartest women. More than 6.4 million university graduates entered the job market in [...]

Tapping its rich mine of educated female talent has been an important factor in allowing India to become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. But recently this particular dynamo has been showing signs of strain. According to “Women of Tomorrow,” a recent Nielsen survey of 6,500 women across 21 different nations, Indian women are the [...]

This post was written with Ripa Rashid, Executive Vice President at the Center for Work-Life Policy, and Diana Forster, a Ph.D. student at the University of Florida and a fellow at the Center for Work-Life Policy. Why aren’t more Asians getting to the top at U.S. companies? They ought to be: They’re highly educated, graduating [...]

This post was written with Karen Sumberg, a senior vice president at the Center for Work-Life Policy. Erika Karp vividly remembers the secrecy and subterfuge that colored every workday before she told her colleagues that she was a lesbian. “You have to devote a huge amount of psychic energy to being closeted — changing pronouns, [...]

If today’s workplace had an anthem, it might very well be the British indie duo Ting Tings’ new song with its refrain “Clap your hands if you’re working too hard.” Workplaces are more demanding than ever in terms of hours and performance. Americans are putting in more hours per week than previous years. That’s creating [...]

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 [...]