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Abstract Nowadays, there are still only a relatively small number of women working in consulting. However, leading consultancies focus increasingly on women due to clients expecting more female consultants and the belief that a better mix of female and male consultants results in better solutions. As a consequence, there is a need to be more attractive to women. Critical factors in achieving a higher level of involvement of women in consulting are a women-friendly corporate culture and project organisation. Also, having more female consultants in more senior roles and their "success stories" can create a chain reaction: women attract women! Despite the low numbers of women working in consulting, the chances for women to reach the top in this field are excellent compared to other industries.
CVA already identified and responded to this issue a while ago. Not only can CVA boast that a respectable 17% of partners are female, there are also impressive success stories of people’s experiences with different part-time models. As a small company, CVA has the advantage of being able to offer a high level of flexibility to individual needs and career development, while maintaining a very family-like atmosphere. In addition, CVA’s emphasis on financial services is helpful: in this field, women are highly valued on the client side.
Women in consultancy - how can we lure them, convince them to stay, encourage and facilitate their development? These are all very pertinent questions for our industry in Germany and many other countries of the world. Nearly all established big consultancies are actively pursuing these issues with some academic research going on as well.1 This raises a question: why?
Our clients want to be advised by more women
In the mid-nineties there was a common belief: "Consultants are male. The female consultant is the exception."2 Now in 2007, still only a comparatively small number of women are working in consulting. Many very talented, well educated women who are interested in consulting do not work in this field due to its unattractiveness to women with a family and children. As a result, the proportion of consultants who are female is less than 20% within the leading and established consultancies in most countries. Furthermore, one can see a very significant pattern emerging: the higher up the hierarchy, the lower this share of women. On the other hand, clients expect more female consultants on project teams, since there is a broad consensus that mixed teams achieve better results than pure male teams through higher efficiency and creativity.3
Leading consultancies have realized this gap and focus more and more on special programmes to support women.
Figure 1: Actual situation in consultancy. Source: Expert discussions (2006)
A lot of recent improvements but still very few women rising to the top
Looking at the situation in detail, one can see a lot of improvements over the last few years. In Germany, the average proportion of women at the consultant/associate level is about 20%-30%. This may increase with more women applying recently. At the more senior levels, the proportion of women has more than doubled during the last six years but is still very low. It appears that the chances of women staying in consulting decline as they become more senior. On the case manager/manager level, the proportion of women is only half of what it is at the junior levels; at the most senior partner level, it usually lies in the one digit range. Typically the figures of big strategy consultancies like McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group or Roland Berger are at the lower end of the range. It appears the rule is: "The bigger the consultancy, the lower the proportion of women".
With a 17% proportion of women at the partner level4, CVA as a strategy boutique already performs very well, but is nonetheless always on the search for capable women. This applies to CVA's competitors as well. The leading consultancies have a particular focus on various women's advancement programmes. They all offer essentially the same core elements for promoting women in the workplace:
special marketing campaigns targeted at women,
a systematic use of women during the recruiting process of women,
different part-time solutions and
facilitation of infrastructure support at home.
Issues and challenges common to the leading strategy consultancies
Leading strategy consultancies not only offer the same core elements, but also face the same challenges in attracting women. Despite the various women's initiatives and advancement programmes of big consultancies, comprehensive challenges remain:5
There is a lack of successful role-models within these organisations with regards to part-time working arrangements or women in leading positions.
There is also a lack of acceptance by men of the importance of women in the workplace in general6 and especially with regard to part-time working arrangements.
Facilitating part-time working arrangements has to be taken into account systematically during the staffing and organisation of a project.
And finally: there has to be a clear definition of alternative career development paths including part-time solutions.
To be successful in retaining women in the long run, consultancies have to offer more flexibility. At the same time, existing successful experiences with part-time models must be pointed out to provide evidence for the compatibility of project work and part-time working.
This discussion about the growing need for a work life balance (but also from the perspective of employment law) and the availability of part-time work are not only an important issue for women but also for men. Therefore consulting firms need to fundamentally change the way they think about project organization and career paths, potentially for ALL staff, not just women.
Project work and part-time working are compatible
However, when looking at the compatibility of project work and part-time working, certain part-time-related aspects have to be taken into account. In general, not every hierarchy level is equally suited for part-time working. At the consultant level, part-time working often seems to be a problem. As one rises through the hierarchy, a part-time worker can delegate more tasks to subordinate colleagues, thus making working on a part-time basis more feasible. As a consequence, clearly the best fit with part-time working is at the partner level. In addition, the type of project also plays an important role in the feasibility of part-time working: long-running projects, with a clear structure and schedule, are very well suited to part-time working; on the other hand, fast burning restructuring/M&A projects are not. However, tasks such as recruiting, pitching, knowledge management and internal studies which are important, but have no time pressure, are always a valid option for those working part-time. Of course, the downside of these tasks is obvious: one cannot build a consulting career upon such work in the long run.
Basic message: project work and part-time working are compatible!
Further important success factors for part-time working are:7
The part-time worker should already be on board a good while before starting on a part-time basis (he or she should be very familiar with the whole infrastructure, the people, the work style etc.).
The corporate culture must be appropriate and ready for part-time working, e.g. there must be a will to systematically take part-time working into account during the staffing and organisation of a project.
There must be flexibility on both sides, e.g. the part-time worker must be prepared to sometimes work flexible hours and not have a strict schedule.
There has to be open internal and external8 communication.
Especially for non-partners, the part-time worker needs an explicit mentor within the company to "sponsor" the arrangements.
The part-time worker has to be very well organized.
Concerning promotion of women, CVA is on the right track!
Taking everything into account, CVA is on the right track concerning creating suitable working environments for women. As mentioned before, CVA has a comparatively high proportion of women at the partner level. There exist comprehensive experiences and success stories with regard to part-time working and there is a high degree of flexibility. Our female consultants especially value the "family touch" of CVA, and our clients are often in sectors like financial services which strongly value mixed teams.
Some examples of women at CVA
In order to give some real life examples and further insight, we interviewed some of our female consultants from different seniority levels. We asked about the standing of women at CVA in general and why they themselves chose CVA.
At the moment, there are three female partners working at CVA: Pascale Guasp, Lilian Fang and Paola Leoni.
Pascale Guasp is a partner in our Paris office. Pascale joined CVA in 1989 directly after her studies at HEC (Paris). She is married and has three children but still works full-time which is not untypical for French women. She states:
Lilian Fang is a partner with CVA in Australia and China. After studying law, she started working at CVA in 1997. To the question of why she chose CVA she responds:
Paola Leoni is a senior partner with CVA in Milan. The Milan office is the only office at CVA where there are more female than male consultants. Since there is only one partner in the Milan office, it is a very good example of the view that women attract women in consultancy. Paola joined CVA just recently in 2006. She explains her decision:
Dr. Stephanie Khadjavi is working as a case manager at CVA Berlin. After her studies and a PhD in economics at HSG (St. Gallen), she started with a small investment bank in Berlin, then joined CVA in 2002. She is married and has two children. Working part-time, she says:
Nicola Goh and Carole Ott are two examples of female senior consultants, located below the manager and case manager level. Nicola studied Modern & Medieval languages in Cambridge and joined CVA London in 2004. She states:
Carole Ott studied at HEC and joined CVA Paris in 2005. Her opinion about CVA is:
At the moment, Carole is starting a wine tasting club at CVA Paris!
These few examples give a brief insight into CVA and its women. Of course there is much more to discover... and to do! Even though CVA has a high proportion of women at partner level compared to their competitors, CVA is nonetheless still looking to improve this. CVA is thus on the right track to take seriously the challenges of attracting female consultants.
Footnotes:
1 E.g. Hördt (2002), Rudolph (2003), Grass (2006).
2 Staute (1996), p. 92.
3 E.g. Ivanova-Stenzel/Kübler (2005), Ihlefeld-Bolesch (1997), Grass (2006).
4 Without the Washington office.
5 Expert discussions (2006).
6 For example, women are often seen "as too emotional, too aggressive and yet also as too weak to make a career in the consulting branch". Rudolph (2004), p. 12.
7 Expert discussions (2006).
8 In practice there exist some exceptions, especially at the partner level, because of the risk (whether real or perceived) of losing clients.
References:
Expert discussions (2006): 10 expert discussions with male and female partners and consultants of McKinsey, Roland Berger, Boston Consulting Group and Metropolitan Consulting Group, September/ October 2006.
Grass, Brigitte (2006): Karrierechancen von Frauen in der Unternehmensberatung, FH Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, mit Unterstützung des Bundesverbandes Deutscher Unternehmensberater BDU e.V. und Joerg E. Staufenbiel Personalberatung, Studie, Rheinbach, Juni 2006.
Hördt, Olga (2002): Frauen in der Unternehmensberatung. Empirische Analyse zur geschlechtsspezifischen Segregation, Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden 2002.
Ihlefeld-Bolesch, Heli (1997): Total E-Quality Management – ein Erfolgsfaktor für Unternehmen. In: Chancengleichheit im Unternehmen, Paradigmenwechsel in der Personalpolitik, Verlag Deutscher Wirtschaftsdienst, Köln.
Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta/ Kübler, Dorothea (2005): Courtesy and Idleness: gender Differences in Team Work and Team Competition, IZA Discussion Paper No. 1768, September 2005.
Rudolph, Hedwig (2004): Beyond the Token Status: Women in Business Consultancies in Germany, Discussion paper SP III 2004-202, Berlin: WZB, May 2004.
Staute, Jörg (1996): Der Consulting Report. Vom Versagen der Manager zum Reibach der Berater, Campus, Frankfurt/ New York.
