June 14, 2016
Next week at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – the ad industry’s biggest annual gathering – Bloomberg Media will again join forces with The Girls’ Lounge to highlight the business case for gender equality in the workplace.
It’s a mission Bloomberg shares with The Girls’ Lounge, which creates spaces for professional women to connect at leadership conferences around the world. At Cannes Lions, The Girls’ Lounge will offer plenty of networking and programming designed to create change in business culture. Its CEO and founder, Shelley Zalis, is also a special contributor to Bloomberg’s recently announced new series “Walk the Talk”, a new series focused on gender equality and the importance of women in executive leadership.
In The Girls’ Lounge at The World Economic Forum earlier this year, l-r: The Girls’ Lounge CEO and Founder Shelley Zalis; directComm Managing Partner Sanem Oktar; Ernst & Young Managing Partner Julie Teigland; and Bloomberg Media COO Jacki Kelley.
That dovetails with Bloomberg’s dedication to increasing both data transparency and workplace equality, a commitment that’s evident in the Bloomberg Financial Services Gender Equality Index (BFGEI), which also launched in May.
The BFGEI offers a truly unique data set, measuring social and governance information such as gender make-up of corporate boards, compensation, product offerings and more – that simply isn’t available anywhere else. The inaugural 2016 index recognizes 26 financial services firms with strong commitments to gender equality, including dedicated social disclosure policies and practices.
As Bloomberg Media’s Chief Operating Officer Jacki Kelley – a noted diversity leader – said earlier this year, speaking at CES, “Data shows the more diversity in the workforce, the more successful the company is. Diversity is not just the right thing to do – the business requires it.”
Kelley will be one of the influencers on hand at The Girls’ Lounge next week in Cannes to champion that message. If you’ll be there, rsvp to join in! Bloomberg Media will be hosting a session at The Girls’ Lounge on Monday at 3:30pm. If not, we’ll be following key moments and reporting back, so bookmark us to read all about it.
– Jen Robinson | June 14, 2016