Advancing Women is an Australian based, globally focussed enterprise providing research, consulting and advisory services on equality, inclusion and gender diversity, in sport and in business.
What Problem Are We Solving?
Australia is a wealthy, developed country which has had positive economic outcomes for more than 2 decades, bucking the global trend. Yet, outcomes for women in Australia across many measures simply do not stack up positively in comparison:
- 86% of Australian companies are chaired by men
- 83% of Australian companies have a male CEO
- 74% organisations have a male-only team of key management personnel
- There is a 14.5% gender pay gap
- Australia has had only one female prime minister
- 70% of the federal lower house MPs are male with 60% of Senators in the upper house male.
Women are also severely under-represented in key decision-making roles in the Australian sporting sector, despite comprising 57.3% of the 220K strong paid sports workforce. The composition of sports leadership is:
- 92.9% Male CEOs;
- 71.2% Male Executives;
- 87.6% Male Chairs;
- 72% Male Board Members.
This is a Well-Polished Problem
Advancing Women is determined to not continue polishing the ‘well-polished problem’ of not enough women in leadership across sport, business and public sectors.
Michelle Redfern established Advancing Women to provide practical, pragmatic solutions to business and sports leaders so they can take action that leads to enduring and sustainable outcomes for their organisation.
How? By having diverse, inclusive workplaces and leadership teams.
The Blueprint
Organisations begin their journey to a gender equal and inclusive workplace for many reasons and in many different ways. Our view is that too many organisations invest time, effort and money in solutions to close the leadership gender gap before they understand which part of this complex problem they need to solve first. This can result in the organisation investing in activity that is not tailored to the organisations needs and level of maturity.
We encourage sports and business leaders to ask themselves 3 key questions:
- Do we know our own brutal truths of reality when it comes to women in our workplace?
- Do we understand the lived experience of our female employees, customers, suppliers, members and supporters?
- Does our organisation have a winning strategy when it comes to women?
We then encourage leaders to start or accelerate their journey using our 4 step design thinking approach, commencing with a diagnostic to really understand where organisational risk and opportunity lies.
Failing to drive aggressively towards gender parity at all levels in your organisation means your organisation is introducing risk across a number of parameters.
Advancing Women Services
| Gender Diversity | Female Leadership | Event |
| Research, Consulting & Advisory | Program | Design & Facilitation |
| Advancing Women draws upon Design Thinking principles to diagnose, design and deliver high impact gender action plans. | The Advancing Women Formula is a six-module female leadership program that builds female leadership capability across 3 competency domains | High impact, engaging events with outcomes. Board retreats, corporate functions, leadership offsites, female professional networks |
About Michelle Redfern
Michelle Redfern is the founder of Advancing Women and is a passionate, engaging advisor, facilitator and mentor to people and organisations. Michelle has held executive leadership roles for blue chip global companies such as NAB, Telstra, Serco and Aegis. She is well known for her passionate leadership and for creating high performance, inclusive workplaces.
In addition to her board director roles with Williamstown VFL Football Club and Good Shepherd Microfinance, Michelle was named as an Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence 2018 and a VicHealth Community Award finalist for her contribution to women in the AFL.
Michelle is a Graduate of the AICD, holds an Executive MBA (Distinction) from RMIT and is an IECL qualified organisational coach.
ABOU
T GENDER EQUALITY SERVICES
Many companies use expert solutions provided by consulting and advisory firms to advance gender equality. However, the offering of gender equality services tends to be fragmented.
We are working to identify and promote a portfolio of gender equality services from consulting organisations who meet Femeconomy’s criteria. The criteria to be a Femeconomy approved company is at least 30% of women on the Board of Directors or 50% female ownership. This provides businesses with the opportunity to support gender equality through their procurement decisions. Contact us for more information.
