The Battle for Female Talent in Brazil - Center for Work-Life Policy

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Intel are leading the way to achieve, inside of our organizations, what the world has
yet to accomplish,” says Hudnell. “In the end, the more successful we are within our
walls, the more positive change we will see in society as a whole.”
Siemens: “Z Leadership” in São Paulo
Since 2008, establishing career development networks for top-tier women has
been a priority at Siemens. Recognizing that a 400,000-strong workforce could not
be transformed simply by a top-down mandate, however, CEO Peter Loescher and
his diversity team created a network of ambassadors to operationalize the firm’s
diversity agenda worldwide. These 160 executives are charged with structuring
and implementing programs that help Siemens’ talent achieve their leadership
potential.
Among these ambassadors is Adriana Ferreira, head of the firm’s Building
Technologies division in São Paulo, Brazil. When she was nominated for the role in
2008, Ferreira pondered how to translate her mandate into action within Siemens
Ltda. Ferreira decided to focus on gender and generation aspects of diversity. “It’s
one thing to embrace the goal of ensuring that everybody has the same access to
every position,” Ferreira observes, “but quite another to figure out how, as a woman
and senior manager, to be a transformation leader here.”
In early 2010, she formed Z Leadership to catalyze that transformation.
Comprising eight female senior execs in the Brazilian subsidiary, the group met
over breakfast to hammer out a four-pronged approach to moving women up
the pipeline. First, they agreed to foster more open and constant communication
among themselves, coaching and encouraging each other through regular
meetings and informal contact. “We wanted specifically to offer the possibility
of formal and informal mentoring between women, because there are so few of
us,” Ferreira says. Second, the group would structure itself as a learning forum,
assigning reading in critical professional development topics and bringing in guest
lecturers every quarter for a debate. “Women in Brazil are more connected with
the necessity of having a better education,” Ferreira explains, “but with all of the
tasks they perform at work and at home, it can be a real challenge to get this kind
of enrichment.” Third, the group determined it would play a much stronger role in
the immediate community as volunteers. “We found women wanted to be socially
active but as individuals, not as executives,” says Ferreira. Fourth, the women
charged themselves with finding ways to support the firm’s broader diversity
initiative as leaders.
After the first meetings, the group elected to broaden its base by inviting
women just below senior leadership to participate, swelling its membership to
32. This presented some logistical difficulties, as participants were too numerous
and spread out to meet over lunch or happy hour, but with teleconferencing, the
network now meets every quarter, fulfilling its very first mandate of connecting
women better between silos. The education component has proven “very
motivating” as a draw, Ferreira says, citing the lively debate at the last quarterly
gathering over how to manage the 32-and-younger workforce at Siemens Ltda.
Similarly, by partnering with a local non-profit that cares for abandoned children,
the group is fulfilling its social mission. Initially, they raised money for the charity to
fund better nutrition for the kids; in the near future they’re poised to provide handson
assistance in terms of the children’s education and social development.
Ferreira is most proud of a recent organizational decision to grant women a
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