The talent pool of young women with leadership potential is increasing, with university-based supply chain programs attracting more female students and more women choosing non-traditional careers in previously male-dominated fields. Yet these future leaders still face obstacles. In many instances, outstanding women are sought, recruited, and hired, yet do not advance in the organization as their male peers do. Participants in AWESOME Symposiums and other events have expressed a strong interest in “paving the way” for these women as well as a sense of obligation to change the future of supply chain leadership to be more open and more appealing to women.
This section of the AWESOME website features information of special interest to future leaders.
Dean of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management urges graduates to take on big, bold jobs
Sally Blount, one of the few woman deans of a top-ranked business school, gives advice to women pursuing business careers, and what she says can apply to supply chain careers as well. “I would argue that the first job is not the time to focus on comfort, balance or even mission,” she declared. “That can and should come later. The first job is the time in their lives for these women to gain credentials, take risks, travel, and land as big and bold an opportunity as they can find.”
Her comments were made during a talk at the Aspen Ideas Festival. She also noted that women make up more than half the entering freshmen at college, but only a small fraction of CEOs, board directors and government leaders. She said Kellogg has identified three “critical pivot points where we are losing women on the way to the C-suite: the launch, the child-rearing years, and the transition to senior management positions.”