JILL SCHNARR: International Women's Day is important to me
for a number of reasons, most importantly because it provides
a platform, really, to learn from the powerful actions
and the inspiring words of the women who came before us.
Because they're the reason we're here where we are today.
There is strength in numbers.
We absolutely need more women in leadership
and we need more women in the pipeline to leadership.
And taking this opportunity to recognize the success
and efforts of women is such a powerful way
to inspire the next generation of female leaders.
Personally, I'm incredibly grateful for the women
in my life who not only broke barriers
to progress in their own careers,
but made an effort to lift up others
as they rose, giving me opportunities and a voice
to grow and thrive.
And I plan to spend the day celebrating
the incredible women in my life, from the talented team
of female leaders I get to work with and learn from every day,
as well as my mom and my sisters, who
have all had such an incredible impact on my life.
Well, I think the first step we must take in order
to break the bias in our communities and our workplaces,
is to really recognize that it actually exists.
I think from the language used in job descriptions
and interviews, to the availability of resources
and mentorship, and promotion into both leadership
and management levels, women have traditionally
been at a disadvantage.
I mean, even today, male candidates
are still twice as likely to be hired than female.
60% of male managers are uncomfortable mentoring one
on one with female employees.
As a working parent, women with children
face penalties, making 11% less than women without children.
And meanwhile, working fathers see a wage benefit,
making 22% more than men without children.
I think these are just a few examples without deliberate
or an actual focused attention put
on this, at every stage of our careers,
women are going to face bias.
And recognizing these challenges is the first step
in taking meaningful action to address them.
Together we can change our language and our actions.
We can know that there is bias there.
And so we can try to take every possible step
to ensure that we remove that bias
and give women the attention that they deserve.
We can raise our voices and together we
can make a difference.
Well, first and foremost, the best advice
I would give to the next generation of women
is to find your purpose and find your voice.
You have to believe in yourself.
I always used to not necessarily participate or speak out
because I thought I wasn't the expert.
I thought I didn't know as much as other people in the room.
And turns out, I actually have an important opinion to give.
So if you're going to a meeting, participate.
Speak up.
Believe in yourself.
Even though you think you may not know it all,
your perspective and opinion is so important and relevant.
And companies need to hear it.
We want to hear it.
So don't be afraid to speak up and add value.
And secondly, know that you can help solve societal problems
and that you have an obligation and an expectation
to not only do well in business, but to look at leveraging
your business to address social issues because governments need
our support.
People need our support.
We've got to find a way for academia, the private sector,
the public sector, governments, people, to all work
together so that we can collectively
try to address social issues.
If more business leaders have this mindset,
we could unite public, private, government,
all together and we could work towards addressing
homelessness, food insecurity, unemployment, and so
many other social issues facing the world.
There really is strength in numbers.
And working together, we can leverage the incredible power
of women.
We can uplift our voices.
We can lift one another up, and we can really truly
influence and drive action to truly change the world.