"Women in leadership should be the norm, not the exception"
#CelebratingDiversity
Hamburg / 8 March 2021
An interview with Marta Jimeno
Today’s International Women’s Day celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievement of women and marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. We caught up with Marta Jimeno, Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Siemens Gamesa. Read about her professional journey and how she advocates for a diverse and inclusive workplace.
As diversity and inclusion are present in everything we do and say, that includes a wide range of topics, such as recruitment, team behavior, leadership and corporate culture. My function leads the topic from top-down perspective, meaning that I develop the global strategy and action plans as well as mechanisms that we use to improve the way we hire, advance pay equity, provide learning and career development opportunities, report and measure KPIs, and establish employee resource groups. Action plans and mechanisms are then adopted by our local HR organizations around the world.
Throughout my career, I have encountered colleagues and managers of all genders who were not able to see beyond the fact that I am a woman. However, I have also met allies – the majority of people – who judged me based on merit and competence, not solely gender.
As I progressed in my career, I actively sought out people who promoted gender equality. The longer I've been with the company, the more I realize the importance of creating a work environment that is free of prejudice and stereotypes, where we can all participate equally and receive the same respect and opportunities.
Not including women in leadership effectively silences the views and perspectives of women - who make up half of the world's population.
To achieve gender equity, we need to question our HR policies and processes to create a work environment that welcomes diverse talent - especially in those roles where women are still underrepresented in our workforce but we also need to question ourselves. Are we as individuals promoting inclusion? Or do we consciously or unconsciously exclude people with our language, our behavior, our comments? We just all need to do better.