Global initiatives: Australia: Women's Leadership Forum

Connecting, inspiring, and empowering PwC Australia's female leaders

PwC Australia's Women's Leadership Forums for partners and directors were held in 2008 in Sydney and Melbourne. The forums are one of a number of eQuilibrium initiatives underway to progress and support our women in positions of leadership, and to underpin PwC's commitment to achieving gender diversity.

Themed "Connect, Inspire, Empower", the forums were interactive, action oriented events which focused on building strengths, sharing positive successes and creating a strategy for building great leadership and role model experiences at a personal and organisational level. Every participant was challenged to return to her office and encourage the career fulfilment of all women in the firm.

Australian partner and Gender Advisory Council representative, Anne Loveridge was the Forum Sponsor and her aspiration for the day was for the female partners and directors to feel:

  • Connected: with people who will stimulate and impact them through the networks established on the day;
  • Inspired: by what they shared with each other on the day by using Appreciative Inquiry (an organisational development process which is a particular way of asking questions and envisioning the future) and their visioning skills; and
  • Empowered: to make a difference to their colleagues, life and career by developing further skills.

Facilitated by female directors and partners from across the firm, the forums used positive psychology techniques as a framework for the content. Participants also heard from leading business women key note speakers Meredith Hellicar in Sydney and Margaret Jackson in Melbourne. PwC Australia's CEO Mark Johnson spoke at the forum dinner and expressed his support for the firm's diversity initiatives.

Topics covered at the forum were:

  • Theory and practice including sharing high points and positive leadership stories, and the importance of role modelling.
  • Mentoring: the value of having a mentor and the firm wide introduction of the My Mentor programme, following a very successful pilot.
  • Visioning: our vision for the next five years and the role female directors and partners will play in making PwC a great place to work.

"The day was a great success and helped in building networks, sharing stories and learning from each other", commented one participant.

What's next?

The efforts to support PwC women do not end with the conclusion of the forums. Participants are encouraged to communicate key learnings back to their teams and to create opportunities to connect, inspire and empower all our PwC women and our female clients.