Do you have a sponsor?

30 years. Maybe more. That’s how long we have to wait for boards of directors to reach gender parity if we continue at the current rate of progress according to a new report. The report claims that some factors keeping women off boards include outdated workplace culture and lack of sponsorship for women. It doesn’t help that women hold only 4.4% of CEO positions globally. Just this week both Under Armour and Nike replaced their male CEOs with...a new male CEO. Opportunity missed indeed. Maybe Jane Fraser will make waves and become the first female CEO of a major bank. We certainly hope she does. But it also seems downright pathetic that as we edge into 2020 that would be notable (and really, hugely so).

McKinsey and LeanIn.Org also recently released their annual report and among other things - gender parity is still decades away, if we ever get there - the data showed just how differently men and women view gender disparity in the workplace. Not only do men and women view the problem (and many men don’t even see it as such) differently, they also view the causes differently. The data on sponsorship was particularly troubling and problematic: the percent of senior men who said they’d be uncomfortable mentoring a younger female rose to 60%. Yes. More than half of men do not want to mentor a female. So what are women in the workplace supposed to do? There are simply not enough senior women to pick up the slack. It creates a self-perpetuating cycle. How do we fix this?

Do you have a sponsor? Have you ever sponsored a younger employee?