Declaring that gender equality in the private sector is "good for business," 167 chief executives from around the world have signed the Women's Empowerment Principles-Equality Means Business. UN Women and UN Global Compact, champions of the initiative, released the list of executives on Wednesday at the Equality Means Business: Putting Principles into Practice conference. It marked the first anniversary of the launch of the principles. Opening the two-day event, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commended CEOs who have signed the principles, but also challenged business leaders to do much more: "We would like to see this leadership community grow exponentially, forming national coalitions to advance these goals across sectors, as they are starting to do in Brazil and elsewhere," the Secretary-General said.
The business case for gender diversity and equality has rapidly developed. Among Fortune 500 companies, those in the top quartile when it comes to women's representation on their boards outperform those in the lowest quartile by at least 53 per cent on return on equity. Many executives acknowledge that it is difficult to change corporate cultures to fully integrate gender equality, however. Since the Women's Empowerment Principles were launched just one year ago, companies report that the CEO commitment has stimulated activities to promote gender equality. One company changed its recruitment policies to seek a higher percentage of female candidates for all jobs. Another company altered procurement practices to include more women vendors.
