A topical subject

As regards feminisation, Western companies are moving with the times. Most of them were set up recently. At the same time as a series of weighty societal events.

Some eras move more quickly than others. It would be unfair to say that 10 years ago, feminising companies and their management committees was not a priority for some. In the biggest companies, the question was on the table, naturally. But was any action actually taken? One of the CEOs and managers we interviewed, Béatrice Chavanel, put it in a nutshell: “It must be said that we’re not that far ahead of the game.”

Renault Group’s VP Diversity & Inclusion was also frank: “Here, Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) has been with us less than a decade. When I took up my post (in April 2021 – Ed.), it was a new department. Previously, there had been one person in charge of this area, but they had spent some of their time in communication and some of it in CSR, without much support or many resources, and above all with no real overall roadmap.”

THE ZEITGEIST

It’s a similar story at Pernod Ricard, where her counterpart Caroline Vaquette dates the start of the group’s D&I initiatives to 2016. “Eight years ago” is also the time cited by Lily Lu, South China Director of Human Resources (HR) for Hilton Worldwide. And by Joanne Kennedy, Chief of Staff, Sanofi R&D: “We were asking ourselves whether our board was diversified enough eight years ago.” 2016 was also when Isabelle Kocher was tipped to become the first female President and CEO of a CAC 40 group.

In the end, she “only” became CEO, but the wind of change was clearly blowing through companies, and that wind has intensified over the last ten years. In France, legislation has been going in this direction (see elsewhere), with the Copé-Zimmermann (2011) and Rixain (2021) acts pointing the way. More generally, several storms have dismantled indefensible barricades: the “Me Too” movement (2017) and its French variant “Balance ton porc” (Squeal on the pig!), have unleashed women’s voices; “Black Lives Matter” has reopened the question of diversity since 2013 and with even greater force since 2020, and the word “woke” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.

Meanwhile, Covid has reshaped our relationship with work. Lily Lu says the success of her programme for creating “a more inclusive and welcoming world” would have been impossible five years ago. “Since Covid, everyone has been paying more attention to other people’s feelings, and showing more empathy and concern for their well-being.”

In ten years, Western societies have moved into a new century. It is no coincidence that businesses, their most connected elements, are now adapting to this. They have to keep up with the times, and they are a barometer of changing representations. Béatrice Chavanel evaluates this at Renault Group: “We’re in a ramping up phase.”

Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) has been with us less than a decade.

Béatrice Chavanel, Renault Group