Fish in the Boardroom

As this episode is the last of the first season, I decided to use the opportunity to not interview anyone, but rather reflect on where I started and what I have learned so far. So, this is a much more reflective and introspective episode, where I share my thoughts with you and summarize the various episodes so far.

My conversation with Amjad Saleem, the Inclusion, Protection and Engagement Manager at the IFRC, the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, revolves around leadership and integrity. His background in peace building & conflict transformation give him an interesting perspective and humility on leadership and inclusion, which inspired me. I hope it will do the same with you.

References that Amjad shared in the interview are:

- The book "Diversify" by June Sarpong

- Work by American author, professor, antiracist activist, and historian Ibram Kendi

The promotion of women in the workplace is currently the biggest issue for women's careers. In this 6th episode, Alkistis Petropaki, general manager of Advance, and I discuss this widely untouched area of diversity efforts: the promotion process.

Advance is a non-profit association of Swiss based companies, which wants to see the share of women in leading positions in Switzerland increase.

Each year, Advance publishes together with the University of St Gallen the Gender Intelligence Report. This report contains a wealth of information around the state of gender equality in Swiss business and offers many inspiring best practices by Swiss companies. I highly recommend the read to anyone interested.

Johanna Seeliger is the founder and CEO of Diversify, a company which works with start-up and established companies to make them more attractive to diverse talent.

Do you believe that recruiting inclusively is hard? Think again... Johanna claims it is much easier and less costly than one might think. Listen to this new episode where, she will explain to you how.

To boost her inclusive recruitment process Johanna uses various tools such as:

Atena Hensch is a Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) expert at Hensch Consulting, specializing in assessments of organizations in terms of where they stand in their diversity and inclusion efforts, but also in understanding their development and educational needs to better practice inclusive leadership. In this episode, Atena speaks with me about inclusive leadership, what makes a good ally and concrete actions to break the chain of non-inclusion.

Rodica Rosu Fridez is the founder of InspirAction and the ambassador for The A Effect in Switzerland. What are women’s responsibilities and what are company’s responsibilities when it comes to engaging women to climb the corporate ladder? This is the discussion I have with Rodica. In this context, she also describes The A Effect (L’Effet A in French), the organization she brought to Switzerland to address the lack of experience-based training programs for mid-level leaders in Switzerland.

Pirmin Meyer the co-founder of WE/MEN, a Swiss movement aiming at engaging men to become vocal about gender equality. In this episode, Pirmin talks openly about his experience, what the reactions were and how it impacts his life today. He also talks about WE/MEN, the movement he created as a reaction to what he observed.

René is HR director at Galderma and is passionate about diversity.

In this podcast episode I talk to him about what brought him to be engaged and about his experience as an HR leader driving change for more Diversity & Inclusion.

Check-out the organization that René mentions in the podcast. Visions is a training and consulting organization in the US that is known for its change-oriented approach:

https://www.visions-inc.org.

Fish in the Boardroom is a bi-weekly podcast discussing Diversity in Swiss Leadership. In 20-30 Minute interviews with leaders throughout Switzerland discuss what can be done on an individual as well as on an organisational level to increase diversity in Leadership positions.