Consulting firm aims to recruit 100 women in 100 days
Procorre, a consultancy with offices across the UK and Ireland, has launched a new initiative to bolster the number of women in its firm. According to the firm’s CEO, Anne O’Donnell, the firm’s history is steeped in trying to change the ‘status-quo’ of consulting, and the new measures will hopefully help to boost diversity across the sector as a whole.
The benefits of closing the gender gap in the workplace are broad, from a wider talent pool to improving social and normative values, to improved business performance. Progress in the space remains slow, though, and a host of issues hold back change. These include implicit biases, and an inflexibility of working practices. In recent years, the management consulting industry has seen a slow, but steady improvement in its female diversity, with the number of women in partner ranks and senior positions on the rise.
Earlier in 2018, UK-based Brickendon announced its aim to have 50:50 representation of women and men in its senior management ranks by 2019. Elsewhere, a host of leading consultancies also reported that their gender and ethnicity pay gaps were shrinking as they look to attract a wider cross-section of society to their firms, while the competition for human resources continues to heat up.
Initially founded in Geneva, Switzerland, by current CEO Anne O’Donnell and a team of entrepreneurs with a desire to challenge the industry status quo, management consultancy Procorre has long worked to promote change within the consulting sector. Procorre has since opened offices in Bristol, London and Dublin, and as it looks to further promote female talent in the industry, the firm has announced the launch of Procorre100, a project aimed recruiting 100 women in 100 days into its consultancy network.
Procorre will look to attract as many female consultants into its network as possible, across the management consultancy’s key sectors, targeting 100 female hires in the same number of working days. The Procorre100 initiative comes as a follow-up to Anne O’Donnell’s contribution to the Vote 100 anniversary book ‘Voice & Vote’, which celebrated the centenary of women gaining the right to vote in the UK. The milestone was heralded across the country this year, in recognition of the bravery of the Suffragettes who won that right.
Speaking to online news provider Business Leader about the new initiative, Anne O’Donnell said, “Although we regard ourselves as a company that has always promoted equality, we wanted to put a stake in the ground. Women have so much to offer the consultancy industry and yet they are underrepresented despite the financial benefits and flexibility it offers. I’m working hard to try to change that within our company and the wider industry and I hope this new initiative will be a driving force in helping us to achieve that objective.”
Audrey Limery – a data scientist and founder of L.Y. Corp, who is working with Procorre as part of the Procorre100 campaign – added, “As women in this industry, we must lead by example, help to empower and inspire females of all ages, and demonstrate that IT is not a male-industry only but is full of intelligent, successful and highly capable women. Although I’ve had my fair share of challenges to overcome, including racism and bullying, I believe you can become a successful IT professional regardless of your background or gender, break the barriers and evolve in a male-dominated environment.”
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