Women’s Leadership Initiative

Steering Committee Charter

Author: Mary L Bennett, mlbennettconsulting.com

1.Purpose

The purpose of the Women’s Leadership Initiative Steering Committee is to provide ongoing strategic direction for the initiative. The role of the Committee is to:

Should be customized to each firm, below are examples of commonly used role descriptors. Add to these are is appropriate for your firm and its structure.

  • Facilitate vision & strategy setting
  • Monitor execution of strategy, results and return on investment
  • Communicate with firm leadership
  • Oversee communication to all relevant audiences
  • Create a dialogue between male and female committee members and beyond to generate and execute on solutions.

Goals and Objectives

The goals and objectives of the Women’s Initiative Steering Committee are:

Should be customized to each firm, below are examples commonly used by firms in this section:

  • Increased awareness at all levels regarding the business case
  • Increased awareness at all levels of success stories and continued barriers
  • Increased retention and advancement of women leaders
  • Improved turnover and advancement metrics
  • Gender parity at all levels of the organization

Approach

Initial meetings will be utilized to:

Should be customized to each firm, below are some common meeting guidelines used in firms. These are dependent on the committee specific role as defined above:

  • Raise our awareness of the barriers and challenges to advancement within our Firm
  • Gather input and discuss the cause of these barriers and potential solutions based on known industry solutions
  • Create an ongoing two way dialogue between female leaders and firm leadership
  • Articulate diagnostic analysis results-document gaps between current state and desired future state
  • Articulate skills, behaviors we are working towards as an organization
  • Set strategies and action plans; Measure and report results
  • Expand on successful solutions, institutionalize

Execution:

  • Steering Committee will be responsible for analysis, strategy setting, measurement and ongoing communication
  • Steering Committee will work thru geographic execution of strategies and action plans
  • Steering Committee will be responsible for involving others in the geography as needed to support implementation

Structure of meetings:

  • The specific meetings, structure and timing of the activities of the committee will be identified by the committee chair.

Organization and Staffing

Dependent on the specific of the firm

Below are examples of the type of statements that might be listed in this section:

  • Membership on the committee will be determined by the firm executive committee and managing partner.
  • The committee shall consist of at least 7 members, with membership balanced in terms of male and female participants
  • The committee shall report to the managing partner
  • The committee shall be lead by a committee chair who is appointed by the managing partner.
  • Each committee member will serve for a 2 year term which is renewable. In the second year, half the committee will be designated as serving 3 year terms to provide for staggered membership.
  • Committee members will exhibit the following attributes:
  • Strong business acumen
  • Ability to lead change through demonstration and teaching
  • Commitment to excellence
  • Boldness and willingness to gather input on difficult topics
  • High EQ – ability to understand employee experiences
  • Strong ability to communicate and articulate positions
  • Helpfulness – desires to develop and lead others in improvement opportunities
  • Creative – able to bring creative solutions to challenging issues
  • Knowledge of the barriers and solutions
  • Interest in the topic and its relevance to the business sustainability
  • Currently has impact and influence in the organization

Measures of Success

The committee will measure the success of the initiative thru:

This is customized to each firm, below are some examples of metrics used by other firms:

  • Reduction of turnover among female leaders
  • Increases in the % of female managers, senior managers and partners
  • Increases in the numbers of visible leadership roles held by women leaders in the firm
  • Increases in the numbers of visible leadership roles held by women leaders in market facing roles
  • Increases in the numbers of women in leadership roles on strategic engagements

Author: Mary L Bennett; mlbennettconsulting.com

AICPA Women’s Initiatives Executive Committee

Organizational Strategy Workshop

Author: mlbennettconsulting.com