Campaign Partner Spotlight: The Female Quotient
This month, as part of our campaign for National Women’s Small Business Month, WBENC is joining forces with other organizations who share our passion for enhancing business opportunities for women entrepreneurs. Today, we’re thrilled to share a guest post from our campaign partner The Female Quotient, a female-owned business committed to advancing equality in the workplace through collaboration, bringing visibility to women, activating solutions for change, and creating metrics for accountability.
GUEST POST
The Female Quotient
At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum projects that it will take 202 years to close the global gender pay gap and 108 years to close the overall gender gap. We can’t wait that long.
The business case for equality is clear: McKinsey finds that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams are 21 percent more likely to experience above-average profitability. Research from DDI shows that companies with gender diverse teams enjoy 1.7x stronger leadership, 1.4x sustained profitable growth, and 1.5x stronger growth culture. Equality in leadership isn’t just good for workplace culture — it’s beneficial for the bottom line.
Supporting #WomenOwned businesses means investing in women’s economic empowerment, gender equality in business, and sustainable economic growth. In the U.S., there are 12.9 million women-owned businesses, representing 42 percent of all businesses. These women-owned businesses businesses employ a total 9.4 million people and generate revenue of $1.9 trillion. While the economic potential of women is huge, these companies account for just 8% of the total private sector workforce and 4.3% of the total private sector revenues.
A woman alone has power; collectively we have impact. Too many women are left out of the equation as the pipeline narrows up the ladder. But, with a vast network of support, women are poised to play a vital role in the overall economy. The truth is that raising each other up and channeling the power of collaboration is how we’ll change the equation—and have a lot more fun along the way.
There is a boys’ club where women have never felt comfortable, so we decided to create The FQ Lounge (formerly the Girls’ Lounge) more than six years ago where everyone feels like they belong. We bring leaders together to activate change through pop-up experiences at conferences, custom events, and college campuses. Powered by collaboration, the destination-turned-movement has become the largest global community of women in business working together to transform workplace culture.
We discovered two things:
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There is power in the pack.
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The time is now to bring your femininity to work, whatever that may look like for you.
Today, we’ve connected more than 17,500 corporate women and female entrepreneurs in the FQ Lounge where women are still the majority, but men feel welcome and comfortable. We give visibility to women for companies looking to do business with women-owned companies and diversify their supplier portfolio.
Through the FQ Practice, we help organizations become a catalyst for change and achieve a return on equality. We are also advancing equality in the workplace and media through solutions for change, measurements for accountability, and helping companies become equality fit. We provide business leaders with research, tools, experiences to promote equality, and publish the Modern Guide to Equality, a playbook for activating change. What’s more? We track progress in four key areas: parity, pipeline, policy, and purpose.
It’s time to reverse the stereotype that women don’t support other women because we all benefit from collaboration over competition. Madeleine Albright once said, “There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.” From our own experience, we say, “There is a special place in heaven for women who support other women.”
ABOUT THE FEMALE QUOTIENT
The Female Quotient is a female-owned business committed to advancing equality in the workplace and the world through collaboration, bringing visibility to women, activating solutions for change, and creating metrics for accountability.