This weekend we celebrated International Women’s Day – a chance to acknowledge the progress women have made in the business world, as well as the progress that still needs to be made.
Since I have joined IMD, there has been a constant focus on playing our part to promote women in leadership positions. We want to encourage women on their leadership development journey, so that they can make more of a positive impact in the world and influence the future of business.
One of the key goals of my Recruitment and Admissions team, is to increase the number of women in the MBA program, and ideally to reach parity by 2022. Happily, the numbers reflect our efforts and applications from strong women candidates are steadily increasing, directly impacting the number of women in the class. This year we reached a record 34% of women participants, all of whom are just as diverse, successful and interesting as their male counterparts.
While supporting women in business is not just a topic for a day, International Women’s Day is a chance for everyone to recognise the importance of promoting support across the board.
With this in mind, on Friday, for the second year running, we organised a women’s admissions assessement day and welcomed four great candidates to the campus for the usual mix of interviews, activities and team assessments. They were also given the opportunity to listen to a panel discussion with three impressive women alumnae from the MBA program.
We hope the day inspired them as they inspired us.
We hope that the future will bring a day when there is no longer a need to differentiate between inspiring men and women and their impact on society.
Anna Farrus
Director, MBA Recruitment and Admissions