With gender equality a critical topic for International Women’s Day, Procurement Leaders spoke with Theano Liakopoulou, partner at McKinsey & Company, where she shared her insights into the challenges facing women in progressing their careers, and how companies can provide the “experience capital” needed to become a senior leader through training, mobility assignments, coaching and mentoring.
Equality is a business necessity
Liakopoulou believes that gender diversity and parity is essential for effective management across all functions, not just procurement. However, despite progress, gender parity remains a challenge and Liakopoulou says we are far from solving the gender equity and parity challenge in the world, with one of the critical hurdles being the steep decline in female representation between entry-level and first-line management roles: “You still see a significant drop between women entering an organisation at the entry level and women getting the first, let’s say, promotion as a manager, let alone women getting all the way to the top because we have the glass ceiling problem.”
Here Liakopoulou references ‘the broken rung’ phenomenon that suggests that the biggest obstacle women face on the path to senior leadership is at the first step up to manager. Citing McKinsey research that suggests – from generalised perspective depending on sector and geography – that with 50% of your career success dependent on your education, and the other 50% dependent on your workplace experience and on-the-job training, women and other diverse profiles are being challenged on the latter.
Building inclusive ecosystems
Creating an environment where women can succeed requires more than policies, Liakopoulou suggests it demands intentional efforts to provide opportunities, mentorship and coaching: “The biggest differentiator, if you want to actually give equal opportunities and be more inclusive, is giving, for instance, women the opportunity to be trained, to go on mobility assignments, and to receive the coaching and mentoring required throughout their careers.”
Reflecting on her journey, Liakopoulou attributes her growth to the opportunities she was given early on at McKinsey. She encourages women to seek environments that offer “experience capital” and actively support their professional development.
Procurement as a career stepping stone
Liakopoulou highlights that procurement, without requiring a profit and loss (P&L) role, can provide women with a great platform to build influence, develop a broad set of critical skills and experiences, giving them a 360-degree view of the company and its value chain: “It’s a great stepping stone for women in the corporate environment to grow and develop, and we do have examples of senior women who, at some point in time, passed through procurement to then step up to senior roles with P&L responsibilities elsewhere in the organisation,” she says.
As procurement’s strategic role within businesses continues to expand, it presents opportunities for women to advance into top leadership positions. However, Liakopoulou stresses that success also depends on choosing the right professional environment: “My advice is, choose an environment that provides the right experience capital and understands the challenges women face. Organisations must actively work on creating the conditions for women to succeed and blossom.”
