- — Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett, speaking about a meeting at the White House recently of business and business school leaders who focused on expanding opportunities for women in the 21st Century workplace. A total of 45 business schools, including those at Chicago, Harvard, Northwestern, and Stanford, participated.
The event, hosted by The White House Council on Women and Girls and the Council of Economic Advisers, convened to focus on challenges women face in the workplace, as evidenced by the fact that only 5 percent of CEOs at Fortune 500 companies in 2014 were female.
In advance of the meeting, Jarret said, “We need to reach tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, managers and employers earlier on in the process. If we can reach them as they begin to form their ideas and values around business and management and each other, and when we empower current employers to make fundamental changes, we have the power to spark a significant cultural change and to begin to unlock our full economic potential.”
As a result of the meeting, the business schools issued a report on best practices which addressed four main areas:
- Ensuring access to business schools and business careers
- Building a business school experience that prepares students for the workforce of tomorrow
- Ensuring career services that go beyond the needs of traditional students
- Using business schools to set an example of how organizations should be run