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volume 16 | issue 4
B2B OMAHA MAGAZINE
Women in Business INTRODUCING OMAHA’S WOMEN IN BUSINESS SPONSORED PROFILES BY MARY HIATT
Less than a year ago, the Omaha Publications team commissioned an exhaustive audit by The Media Audit, a qualitative audience survey of Omaha metro residents, their demographics, and their media consumption preferences.
Although we were not surprised to learn that our magazines provide great branding partnerships, we were amazed that 67.5 percent of the readers of B2B Magazine are women. Thus began the concept for this themed issue. When the publisher asked me to be involved with this special edition, I came across a report from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, titled “Is Gender Diversity Profitable? Evidence from a Global Survey.” The working paper features a fascinating statistic: “For profitable firms, a move from no female leaders to 30 percent representation is associated with a 15 percent increase in the net revenue margin.” This 35-page report studied 21,980 companies: nearly 60 percent have no female board members, over 50 percent have no female C-suite executives, and less than 5 percent have a female CEO. “Women do not participate in the global economy to the same extent as men do,” the study claims. No kidding. Yet, the report found a “positive correlation between the proportion of women in corporate leadership and firm profitability,” with an emphasis on “the importance of creating a pipeline of female managers and not simply getting lone women to the top.” The largest gains in net revenue happen when a company increases the proportion of female executives, then by increasing the proportion of female board members. Having a female CEO with no other females in the organization has no noticeable affect on a firm’s performance. Men: not only is the active promotion of women the right thing to do, it is the profitable thing to do! Ladies: be a part of the shift. Rather than competing against each other for the top spots in a man’s world, be supportive and encouraging of one another; help to build that pipeline of female leaders. A great avenue for achieving this collaboration is networking. On page 25, I’ve compiled a list of women’s networking groups, where you can comfortably discuss issues that women uniquely face or share some potential sales leads or job openings. If you have already achieved your goals, congratulations! Women need mentors as we seek to change business culture and actively participate in the global economy. Omaha Publications is thankful to have the support of these brilliant ladies on the following pages of our inaugural edition of Women in Business. We’re sure you’ll enjoy reading about these Omaha businesswomen as much as we’ve enjoyed meeting them. And, if you would like to meet some of them yourself, they’ll probably be at a networking event.
Mary Hiatt is a branding specialist at Omaha Publications. Visit piie.com/publications/wp/wp16-3. pdf for the report, “Is Gender Diversity Profitable? Evidence from a Global Survey.”