Holiday Cheer 🎅🏻
Edition 95
To my fabulous Chief Brief community!
Today is Chief Brief’s last bulletin of 2023. We’ll resume our natter about the amazing women making headlines around the world and the issues impacting them on 7 January 2024. Thank you for your support and readership this year.
Wishing you all a wonderful 2024! I hope to hear from you on the topics and women you want covered next year! Drop me an email & don’t forget to share The Chief Brief with friends and family this holiday season!
In the meantime….for your reading pleasure:
News at the year end
Politics
Changes to Indonesia’s gender quota rules are set to result in fewer women running for office in 2024’s elections. The country’s electoral commission has tweaked policy around the country’s 30 per cent gender quota on party lists, changing a previous rule. Read more at Eco business
The Democratic Republic of Congo central Africa’s largest and most populous country heads to the polls of December 20th and its front runner has positioned himself as a ‘feminist presidential candidate.’ How much of it is real and how much political hot air? Read more at France24
She’s been likened to the ‘new Prince Andrew,’ and described as a ‘plague profiteer’ after a car crash of an interview where she tried to ‘set the record straight’. Meet Michelle Mone, the lingerie Baroness who is locked in battle with the Prime Minister and under fire for the U.K.’s Covid equipment scandal. Read more at The Guardian
Business
The 25x25 initiative (backed by companies including Unilever, BP and Morgan Stanley International) has found the UK pipeline for future female CEOs, even at companies that employ a large proportion of women overall looks dire. Women account for only 19% of FTSE 100 divisional heads — the pathway or position that 44% of current FTSE 100 CEOs previously held. And if you think the future is dire for female leadership, a quick reminder -currently there are only 9 FTSE100 CEOs who are women. Read the 25x25 initiative report.
BP according to company sources has shortlisted 3 candidates for the position of CEO. 2 of them are women: Murray Auchincloss (interim CEO) Carol Howle (head of trading and shipping) and Emma Delaney (head of customers and products)
What did I find interesting? Media reports chose to name the man in the running in the story’s lead paragraph, while the other two were simply the ‘two female candidates’: For example, here’s the wire service Reuters exclusive lead (remember - this is a wire story that will be/was picked up by other media companies):
BP's (BP.L) board has short-listed interim CEO Murray Auchincloss and two senior female executives as internal candidates to replace Bernard Looney as chief executive, three company and industry sources told Reuters.
Japan’s oil giant ENEOS Holdings has fired the company’s President Takeshi Saito for ‘inappropriately hugging a woman while intoxicated.’ This is the second such firing in 2 years for the company. The last one was ENEOS’ then CEO and Chairman who was let go for ‘inappropriate language and behaviour towards women’. Read more at Nikkei Asia
Society
COP28 - It was a miss. (Well, that’s all I can think about writing on it). Oh yes - and only 15 of the 140 speakers in the UAE were women. The gender balance of party delegations was also skewed - only 38% of representatives were women, while 62% were men. So - basically we were invisible at the most important meeting of the year about the future of our planet. There, that’s COP covered!
If you were wondering how India has made massive developmental and economic gains since 1991, despite the country’s failure to increase female participation rates as the economy matures - this think piece by Ashwini Deshpande, Professor of Economics at Ashoka University is a must read.
Agustina Morgavi, a sociologist and active member of the Slow Food Community of Mar del Plata, has devised a project in Argentina to promote gender equality in the gastronomy and cocktail industry in the country through a range of educational and awareness-raising initiatives. Why am I highlighting this?
Quite simply because Gender disparity is a pervasive problem in the global food system. Women farmers struggle for resources and opportunities (see this FAO report) as do women across the food sector, putting food security for millions at risk.
In Argentina women in the gastronomy industry earn 20% less than men for the same tasks. This falls largely in line with the country’s Gender Equality Gap, which shows that women are 24% less likely to have equal opportunities than men. Let’s add a little more reality to that recipe - Get to know the Slow Food movement here
Civil Society
According to a new TD Wealth report women are powering philanthropy growth in Canada. Donations claimed by women in Canada in annual tax filings nearly tripled to $4.3 billion in 2021, up from $1.5 billion in 2011. According to the report, at current rates of growth, donations claimed by women are projected to reach $5.9 billion by 2030.
“Put simply, the country’s almost 86,000 charities would not function without their support.” Read the TD Wealth Report
Gwen Hines, CEO of Save The Children UK will step down from her role in 2024 after 6 years in the job. She is set to become CEO of Plant Heritage. A new CEO for Save The Children UK will be appointed in early 2024. Read more at civil society
Entertainment
Cate Blanchett has launched the ‘Proof of Concept Accelerator Program’ alongside the co-founder of her independent film company, Dirty Films, Coco Francini, and Dr. Stacy L. Smith, who founded the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. The initiative has also received backing from Netflix’s Fund for Creative Equity. Read more at The Pink News
If it wasn’t enough that Taylor Swift is a global pop icon, bagging even the Time Person of The Year 2023 — the vocal powerhouse is now officially a business strategy moniker. Transport for London is the latest to join the bandwagon as it considers whether to introduce Taylor Swift-style “dynamic pricing” to get more people travelling by Tube. Read more at The Standard
Essential holiday reading - to gift & be gifted!
Seeing the World, by Fu Ying
In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story, by Ghada Karmi
Grand Tour, by Elisa Gonzalez
Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere, by Maria Bamford