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Fifteen years ago,

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I thought that the diversity stuff
was not something I had to worry about.

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It was something an older
generation had to fight for.

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In my university,
we were 50-50, male-female,

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and we women often had better grades.

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So while not everything was perfect,

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diversity and leadership decisions

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was something that would happen
naturally over time, right?

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Well, not quite.

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While moving up the ladder
working as a management consultant

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across Europe and the US,

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I started to realize how often
I was the only woman in the room

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and how homogenous leadership still is.

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Many leaders I met

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saw diversity as something to comply with
out of political correctness,

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or, best case, the right thing to do,

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but not as a business priority.

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They just did not have a reason to believe

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that diversity would help them achieve
their most immediate, pressing goals:

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hitting the numbers,
delivering the new product,

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the real goals they are measured by.

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My personal experience
working with diverse teams

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had been that while they require
a little bit more effort at the beginning,

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they did bring fresher,
more creative ideas.

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So I wanted to know:

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Are diverse organizations
really more innovative,

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and can diversity be more
than something to comply with?

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Can it be a real competitive advantage?

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So to find out, we set up a study
with the Technical University of Munich.

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We surveyed 171 companies
in Germany, Austria and Switzerland,

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and as we speak, we're expanding the study

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to 1,600 companies

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in five additional countries
around the world.

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We asked those companies
basically two things:

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how innovative they are
and how diverse they are.

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To measure the first one,

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we asked them about innovation revenue.

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Innovation revenue is the share
of revenues they've made

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from new products and services
in the last three years,

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meaning we did not ask them
how many creative ideas they have,

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but rather if these ideas
translate into products and services

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that really make the company
more successful today and tomorrow.

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To measure diversity,
we looked at six different factors:

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country of origin,
age and gender, amongst others.

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While preparing to go in the field
with those questions,

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I sat down with my team

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and we discussed what
we would expect as a result.

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To put it mildly, we were not optimistic.

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The most skeptical person on the team
thought, or saw a real possibility,

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that we would find nothing at all.

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Most of the team
was rather on the cautious side,

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so we landed all together at "only if,"

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meaning that we might find
some kind of link

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between innovation and diversity,

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but not across the board --

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rather only if certain criteria are met,

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for example leadership style,
very open leadership style

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that allowed people to speak up freely
and safely and contribute.

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A couple of months later,
the data came in,

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and the results convinced
the most skeptical amongst us.

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The answer was a clear yes,

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no ifs, no buts.

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The data in our sample showed

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that more diverse companies
are simply more innovative, period.

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Now, a fair question to ask
is the chicken or the egg question,

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meaning, are companies
really more innovative

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because they have
a more diverse leadership,

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or the other way around?

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Which way is it?

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Now, we do not know how much
is correlation versus causation,

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but what we do know is that clearly,

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in our sample, companies
that are more diverse

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are more innovative,

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and that companies
that are more innovative

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have more diverse leadership, too.

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So it's fair to assume
that it works both ways,

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diversity driving innovation
and innovation driving diversity.

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Now, once we published the results,

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we were surprised
about the reactions in the media.

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We got quite some attention.

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And it went from quite factual,

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like "Higher Female Share
Boosts Innovation"

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to a little bit more sensationalist.

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(Laughter)

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As you can see,

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"Stay-at-home Women Cost Trillions,"

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and, my personal favorite,

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"Housewives Kill Innovation."

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Well, there's no such thing
as bad publicity, right?

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(Laughter)

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On the back of that coverage,

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we started to get calls
from senior executives

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wanting to understand more,

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especially -- surprise, surprise --
about gender diversity.

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I tend to open up
those discussions by asking,

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"Well, what do you think of the situation
in your organization today?"

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And a frequent reaction to that is,

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"Well, we're not yet there,
but we're not that bad."

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One executive told me, for example,

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"Oh, we're not that bad.

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We have one member
in our board who is a woman."

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(Laughter)

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And you laugh --

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(Applause)

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Now, you laugh, but he had a point
in being proud about it,

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because in Germany,

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if you have a company

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and it has one member
on the board who is a woman,

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you are part of a select group of 30

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out of the 100 largest
publicly listed companies.

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The other 70 companies
have an all-male board,

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and not even one of these hundred
largest publicly listed companies

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have, as of today, a female CEO.

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But here's the critically
important insight.

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Those few female board members alone,

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they won't make a difference.

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Our data shows that for gender diversity
to have an impact on innovation,

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you need to have more
than 20 percent women in leadership.

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Let's have a look at the numbers.

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As you can see, we divided
the sample into three groups,

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and the results are quite dramatic.

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Only in the group where you have
more than 20 percent women in leadership,

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only then you see a clear jump
in innovation revenue

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to above-average levels.

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So experience and data
shows that you do need critical mass

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to move the needle,

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and companies like Alibaba,
JP Morgan or Apple

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have as of today
already achieved that threshold.

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Another reaction I got quite a lot was,

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"Well, it will get solved over time."

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And I have all the sympathy in the world
for that point of view,

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because I used to think like that, too.

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Now, let's have a look here again
and look at the numbers,

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taking Germany as an example.

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Let me first give you the good news.

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So the share of women
who are college graduates

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and have at least 10 years
of professional experience

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has grown nicely over the last 20 years,

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which means the pool
in which to fish for female leaders

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has increased over time,

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and that's great.

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Now, according to my old theory,

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the share of women in leadership

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would have grown
more or less in parallel, right?

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Now, let's have a look
at what happened in reality.

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It's not even close,

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which means I was so wrong

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and which means that my generation,

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your generation,

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the best-educated
female generation in history,

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we have just not made it.

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We have failed to achieve leadership
in significant numbers.

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Education just did not
translate into leadership.

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Now, that was a painful realization for me

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and made me realize,

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if we want to change this,

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we need to engage,
and we need to do better.

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Now, what to do?

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Achieving more than 20 percent
women in leadership

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seems like a daunting task to many,

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understandably, given the track record.

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But it's doable,

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and there are many companies today
that are making progress there

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and doing it successfully.

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Let's take SAP, the software
company, as an example.

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They had, in 2011,
19 percent women in leadership,

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yet they decided to do better,

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and they did what you do
in any other area of business

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where you want to improve.

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They set themselves a measurable target.

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So they set themselves a target
of 25 percent for 2017,

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which they have just achieved.

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The goals made them think more creatively
about developing leaders

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and tapping new recruiting pools.

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They now even set a target of 30 percent
women in leadership for 2022.

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So experience shows it's doable,

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and at the end of the day,

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it all boils down to two decisions
that are taken every day

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in every organization by many of us:

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who to hire and who
to develop and promote.

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Now, nothing against women's programs,

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networks, mentoring, trainings.

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All is good.

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But it is these two decisions

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that at the end of the day
send the most powerful change signal

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in any organization.

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Now, I never set out
to be a diversity advocate.

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I am a business advisor.

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But now my goal is
to change the face of leadership,

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to make it more diverse --

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and not so that leaders can check a box

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and feel like they have
complied with something

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or they have been politically correct.

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But because they understand,

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they understand that diversity
is making their organization

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more innovative, better.

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And by embracing diversity,
by embracing diverse talent,

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we are providing
true opportunity for everyone.

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Thank you. Thank you so much.

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(Applause)