About me
Hello, and welcome to The Gender Blog. I’m Cleo and I live and work in London with my husband (TLS). I love to travel and, on this blog, I write about things which catch my eye as they relate to women, including myself: in the media, in politics, in business, in books, in the world.
Why women? Good question. And something of a chicken and egg query - which came first? In career terms, I have always worked in environments which were either fiercely, almost exclusively male (IT, banking) or excessively female (recruitment). However, in 2006, a chain of events led to me moving into gender diversity, which was a light bulb moment for me, both personally and professionally.
Between 2006 and autumn 2009, I worked for a major professional services firm, running their global gender diversity function and banging the drum for more women in leadership roles, more women in the pipeline and other issues relating to gender balance and equality of opportunity. In that capacity, I have served on the advisory board of the not-for-profit International Women of Excellence group and I was one of the team instrumental in bringing Working Mother magazine to South Africa for the inaugural 2008 Global Advancement of Women summit. I also represented my employer on the Boston College Center for Work and the Family’s Global Workforce Round Table and was what is known as a “Sherpa” (meaning, leader, climber and one who makes things possible) member of the World Bank’s Global Private Sector Leaders’ Forum working party on gender.
Other organisations with whom I have liaised and collaborated on gender related projects include the French based Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society and the Simmons School of Management in the USA.
My work on gender related projects in a corporate capacity included researching and co-authoring the groundbreaking report on the loss of female talent “The Leaking Pipeline: Where are our female leaders? 79 women share their stories” and serving as the Executive Producer of the film, “Closing the Gender Gap”, for which we identified, approached and interviewed leading business people, academics and politicians, who shared their views and hopes for the world in 2050 and how female talent can help to shape it. The film was showcased at the 2009 World Economic Forum in Switzerland and is available to view via this link.
My then employer’s global gender programme was named Opportunity Now’s inaugural winner of the 2009 Global Award for a diversity initiative covering three or more countries and the firm was also named the 2009 Number One company for global diversity by DiversityInc; again, the first time they have awarded this accolade.
On my travels, I have spoken on the topic of women in business and gender diversity at events in the UK, India, South Africa, Belgium, Spain, France, Mexico, Sweden, the Netherlands and the USA; I’ve also been quoted in and written for media sources which include The Times of India and websites The Thin Pink Line and The Glass Hammer. As part of my “day job”, I oversaw and provided much of the material for my employer’s external gender diversity website, wrote a corporate blog, The Gender Agenda and contributed articles and material on global initiatives, gender balance and diversity to publications which include Thomson-Reuters IDS Diversity at Work, Strategic HR magazine, the Opportunity Now website and the newsletter of the Australian Centre for Leadership for Women.
In a personal capacity, I am a member of the Fawcett Society and my current global diversity based involvement includes supporting the Downing Street Project in an advisory role and serving as a Global Advisor to the Women Business Leaders’ Forum in India (an initiative of the Confederation of Indian Industry).
As well as blogging, I write for a number of other websites; recent articles include this piece on the need for gender balance in politics , a piece on travel tips for Alpha Female and an article celebrating the launch of the ILGA website to support members of the LGBTI community.
I also write and consult for emberin, Australia’s leading gender diversity company.
If you’d like to discuss consulting projects, please contact me via cleo@thegenderblog.com – thank you.
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