Chile

Because education is vital to narrow the gender gap, we invite you to the digital talk "Scholarships and Gender Focus: An imperative for closing the gap", held in conjunction with the Adolfo Ibáñez University and in collaboration with Proyecto Moms. In this instance, you will be able to learn about the new MBA Scholarship program.

Dare to be part of this change together with the 30% Club Chile!

You can sign up here: https://mkg.uai.cl/postgrados-nuevo/charlas/lanzamiento-becas-equidad-de-genero-club/page/contact

Also, you can write an email to: maria.milia@uai.cl

Despite the progress made in recent decades, gender inequality in the global labor market is still very high. If we look at our country, the figures are among the lowest: in Chile only 5% of companies have female general managers, while women make up more than 53% of professional education enrollments.

With the aim of contributing to the development and promoting the change that the national industry needs, the first Inter-company Mentoring Program of the 30% Club will be held in Chile, which was launched on Wednesday, January 6.

María Pía Aqueveque, Chair of Club 30% Chile, explains that "the Club is a campaign founded in the United Kingdom with the objective of achieving a minimum of 30% female representation on the Boards of Directors of the 350 companies with the highest FTSE 350 valuation in London. Since its inauguration in 2010, the participation of women on the boards of directors in that country increased from 8.8% to 32.2% in 2020".

Today there are chapters in 17 countries," she adds, "calling today in Chile for the leadership of the Presidents of Boards and CEOs of IPSA, IGPA and multinational listed companies, as well as the commitment of the nominating committees, to advance in generating true gender balance in Chilean companies with a view to business sustainability".

The Inter-company Mentoring Program will have the participation of five companies: Anglo American, Antofagasta Minerals, Colbún, Mastercard and Walmart. Fifty-one executives (10/11 from each of these companies) will be trained as mentors to guide 51 female professionals from other participating companies during the process, thus forming 51 inter-company working pairs. The program will be carried out by the social enterprise WoomUp, who specialize in mentoring and networking programs to boost women's careers.

Among the mentors are our members Iván Arriagada (CEO of AMSA), Thomas Keller (General Manager at Colbún) and Hernán Rodríguez (President of Colbún), Patricio Sandoval (Country Manager Mastercard Chile) and Gonzalo Gebara (CEO of Walmart Chile).

The program begins with the training of mentors, who will be provided with content to enable them to work effectively with a gender focus. At the same time, the mentors will participate in various Masterclasses, where they will analyze their professional development objectives. Afterwards, mentoring sessions will be held for a period of four months, during which training sessions will continue to be held, providing the mentored women with the necessary tools so that they can boost their professional careers to the highest level, promoting their arrival at the highest positions within the companies.

This mentoring seeks to advance the cultural change of diversity and inclusion in three ways through the active interaction of the companies. First, mentors and mentorees complete their strategic vision for their career development. Second, mentors will have a broader view of the challenges of career development from the experience of their mentees. And third, that in the future, active career sponsorship spaces are generated, that is, that mentors can recommend their mentorees.

María Pía Aqueveque states that "our objective is that this Program means a first big step to advance in the cultural change around diversity and inclusion issues in Chile, which will allow us to reach at least a 30% participation of women in high positions and boards of directors by 2025". He specifies that "this objective can only be achieved with the commitment of company managers, both men and women, to work together to change the paradigm and achieve gender equity in the workplace".

Hernán Rodríguez, 30% Club Member and Chairman of the Board of Colbún and one of the mentors of this first program, confirms the urgency for national companies to assume this commitment, pointing out that "there will be no progress if we do not work actively. Looking at ourselves and asking why there is a lower percentage of female leadership in our strategic initiatives has been important for us to realize practices and a culture that we must change".

This event, organized by 30% Club together with Walmart Chile and WoomUp, is the third CEO's meeting of the 30% Club de Chile, convened by its member Gonzalo Gebara, CEO of Walmart Chile.

As part of the commemoration of a new International Women's Day, last Friday morning, 12th March, a prominent group of business leaders gathered to talk and discuss about gender equality. Under the name "Collaborate to advance", this instance was directed by Gonzalo Gebara, CEO of Walmart Chile, and was attended by Roberta Valenca (General Manager of The Coca Cola Company for Chile, Bolivia and Paraguay), Thomas Keller (Manager General of Colbún), Nicolás Goldstein (Executive President of Accenture Chile) and Marta Colet (CEO of Aguas Andinas).

The event, organized by 30% Club, Walmart Chile and WoomUp, arises as a propitious opportunity to thoroughly discuss and reflect on the value of gender equity for companies, in addition to guiding towards the actions we must take to accelerate the change.

Gonzalo Gebara, CEO of Walmart Chile, opened the meeting by highlighting the importance of gender equality and introducing each of the participants. Marta Colet, CEO of Aguas Andinas, was the first to present her vision and highlighted the challenge caused by the pandemic. “We believe that the health crisis has been an excellent opportunity to promote equity, since the way of working from home does not distinguish between genders. Here, coresponsibility is very important when it comes to dividing up the housework”, she said.

Another aspect that was put on the table was the effect of female participation within organizations and the need to bridge the gap. In this sense, Nicolás Goldstein, Executive President of Accenture Chile, underlined the importance of diversity in companies to generate products and services with a multidisciplinary perspective. “When women go up, we all go up. Companies with more than 33% women have ten times higher profits”, he commented.

Roberta Valenca, General Manager of The Coca Cola Company for Chile, Bolivia and Paraguay, continued talking about how we can generate accountability on gender equity issues within organizations. "By bringing women into the workforce and in leadership positions, gross domestic product and company profits would grow", she said. "At Coca Cola we are convinced that success and growth come hand in hand with diversity and inclusion", she concluded.

Normally, gender equity is raised as an ethical imperative rather than highlighting the great benefit it presents for companies. Along these lines, Thomas Keller, General Manager of Colbún, commented that "organizations must show the entire workforce that the company does better if it advances in gender inclusion".

In order to promote diversity and inclusion on the boards, as well as increase the incorporation of women in the Senior Management of companies, the Institute of Directors of Chile, IdDC, awarded two scholarships for its corporate governance program "Effective Directories" 2020.

Ana María Rabagliati from Antofagasta Minerals and Gabriela Feierabend from Willis Towers Watson were the winners. After receiving the news, Ana María Rabagliati, Vice President of Human Resources at Antofagasta Minerals, said us that she was “very enthusiastic and grateful for the opportunity they have given me to participate in this program. I believe that it will give me effective tools to contribute from my role as director and acquire knowledge that will allow me to strengthen my contribution to the development of good corporate governance of companies. ”

At the same time, Gabriela Feierabend, CFO of Willis Towers Watson Chile, said us she is “very grateful to be able to participate and earn this scholarship for the Directory Efectivos program. I firmly believe in gender equality and that there is no barrier in women if we believe in ourselves. I hope that this program will give us a different perspective as directors and how to act in this 'new reality' in a responsible and effective way ”.

The scholarship was focused on women candidates from the companies associated with the Club of 30%, with an experience of at least 15 years, of which the last 5 have been in leadership positions and roles and who are currently aspiring to be board member.

“There will be no progress if one doesn’t work actively. Looking at each other and wonder why the absence of female leadership in our strategic initiatives, has been important to think about our culture that we must change”, says Hernán Rodríguez, President of Colbún Energía and Member of the 30% Club Chile. 

At the same time, Juan Carlos Eichholz told us “How diversity culture and female leadership attributes are very necessary at digital age. In addition, there are experiments that have shown that teams work improves when there is 30% as minimum representation".

Ricardo Falú, GG of AES Gener told us about his successful experience incorporating 50% of women at work in Colombia and the support to them. Both companies are competition, but they are collaborating and sharing best practices.

In our first activity, Ann Cains, Global President of the 30% Club and UK MasterCard Executive Vice President, welcomed us and shared the experience in the UK and other countries and how they have been able to achieve their goals.

Participants could share different best practices, policies and vision of the impact of diversity in their organizations, interest in Club of 30% Chile purpose, in particular for CEOs and Presidents, through the Investor Group and in the redefinition of merit and talent search.

Different key players took part in this event such as Ivan Arriagada, Chief Executive Officer AMSA; Ana Maria Rabagliati, VP of  Human Resources AMSA; Rene Aguilar, VP of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability AMSA; Cecilia Arrue, Corporate Technical Manager Processing Minera Zaldivar; Rosario Orchard, VP of Planning and Control Management Minera Centinela; Paula Aguirre, VP of Finance Minera Antucoya and Edgar Rojas, VP of Organizational Development AMSA.