Even though women make up only about a quarter of the profession, their collective impact on the industry is far greater.
In some cases, they are industry veterans who have spent decades sharpening their skills and leading business strategies. In other cases, they are rising stars, poised to be the leaders of the next generation of consulting. In November 2007, Consulting magazine recognized five women leaders in consulting. Two of them are actively involved in women's initiatives within their respective firms: Sharon Marcil, a senior partner at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Cathleen Benko, vice chairman and managing principal and Chief Talent Officer at Deloitte & Touche USA.
"In this profession," Benko says, "talent is the product. It's not just the support, but it's actually what we sell." Benko knows a lot about the challenges women face in the consulting industry; she heads Deloitte's Women's Initiative, which has been in existence for about 15 years. Women have specific development needs, Benko says, such as getting appropriate recognition for their efforts. However, the initiative also has given rise to innovation at Deloitte, such as the Women as Buyers program, which aims to teach men about female communication styles in the marketplace. In Benko's ideal world, however, no Women's Initiative would exist. "We all see a world where a lot of the needs for a women's initiative would actually cease over time."
As a woman leader at BCG, Marcil has been instrumental in the success of the firm's Women's Initiative. Since she began leading the initiative three years ago, the number of BCG women in North America has increased 35 percent.
"If you look back 10 or 15 years, BCG has been historically very strong in terms of the percentage of women in the firm, particularly in the U.S.," Marcil said. "There was a time, when we were a smaller firm, that the New York office was half female. So, we looked at the data and we said, what were we doing then that we're not doing now? Why is it that we're getting fewer women now in the recruiting pipeline, and why is it that we're having such attrition?"
"From a recruiting standpoint, I think we figured out that we were fishing [in the wrong] pools to find the most talented women," she says. "On the retention side, there were some things that we were doing that were hindering recruiting. There were things around career development, mentoring and coaching. We were able to address them via an informal mentorship program as well as formally with training programs."
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Source: Consulting, November 2007