Happy Tuesday:
On Thursday, November 16th our Fort Worth Chapter is hosting its annual fundraiser luncheon. This year’s topic is “The Value of Smart Women in Business.” The question is, what value do women bring to the work world and finance in specific? A new report from MSCI noted that firms with a strong female influence on their board performed 36% better in terms of return on equity than those that did not. That is outperformance on a grand scale no matter how you count. The full article can be found here. The link to the event can be found here.
We can count Mark Benioff as one of the enlightened who has been working diligently to close the pay gap at Salesforce. Based on 2 annual surveys of the gender pay gap at his firm, he spent $6 million over the period to close the gap. Kudos to him for showing us this is not really that hard a problem to fix. The full article can be found here.
Our second hero of the week is Lt. General Jay Silveria who leads the US Airforce Academy. He found racial slurs printed on the message boards of 5 African American cadets. His response? “If you can’t treat someone from another gender, whether that’s a man or a woman, with dignity and respect, then you need to get out. If you demean someone in any way, then you need to get out. And if you can’t treat someone from another race or a different color skin with dignity and respect, then you need to get out.” Well said.
Finally, from the career advice file, two worthwhile reads this week. The first tackles the issue of recovery after making a bad first impression. It seems there are concrete steps you can take to redeem yourself. The full article can be found here.
One of the criticisms women receive is that they wait to apply for jobs that they are fully qualified for rather than ‘stretching’ to fit into a job they can grow into by tapping into unrealized potential. The next article provides a good roadmap for women and their managers. The full article can be found here.
Our Houston chapter is hosting its annual Boots & Blackjack event on Wednesday, October 11th. Given the devastation Harvey has wrought on Houston, we have updated the use of proceeds raised at the event to include disaster relief for the students and staff of the Young Women’s College Preparatory Academy of Houston. I want to thank our raffle, silent auction and wine pull sponsors: MM LaFleur, Maid in the Shade, Pure Barre, JuiceLand, Soul Cycle, Elaine Turner, Motherhood Center, Discover Gymnastics, Kendra Scott, Equinox, Saint Street Swim, Total Wine, Main Street Theater, Amy’s Ice Cream, Alley Theater, Sprinkles Cupcakes, Nothing Bundt Cakes and the Houston Wine Merchant. To learn more about the Young Women’s Preparatory Network and the amazing life changing work they are doing, please take a moment to watch this video.
We have some terrific events lined up for you this Fall and look forward to seeing you all at an event in 2017!
To learn more about our 2017 events, please visit www.txwsw.com.
Kind regards
Christine