Women in Leadership (WiL) program

Empowering women and creating leaders inside, and outside, our firm

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At PwC Canada, we’re committed to developing a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Having more top women talent represented at all levels of business is key to the success of our economy. But we also recognize that women aren’t making it to leadership positions at the same rate as men. Some remain stuck in the so-called frozen middle.

Our Women in Leadership (WiL) program is helping unlock women’s potential. It’s an intensive, six-month program that provides women with personal and professional development focused on four areas: insights, tools, networks and experience. The program also promotes sponsorship by educating our participants on the importance of having strong supporters in decision making positions—senior people who will be in the room when promotions and special projects are being discussed. WiL promotes sponsorship by having men involved in nominating participants. This brings men and women together to create leadership opportunities and accelerate the development, retention and advancement of high-potential women.

By recognizing, respecting and valuing everyone’s differences, we can create a culture that’s truly inclusive.

Key elements of the Women in Leadership program

Insight

Understand your personal attributes, workplace realities and team dynamics.

Tools

Learn practical skills like self-awareness, goal setting, resilience and balance.

Network

Understand the roles of coaches and mentors and the path to sponsorship.

Explore

Proactively find the right opportunities to put learnings into practice.

“This program has given me the insight to move gender equality from affirmative actions to enablement of top talent. Seeing the program as a mentor as well as through the eyes of my teammate has allowed me to change the conversation with our HR.”

History of the program

Launched in 2013, our WiL program was created to support the advancement of top female talent within our firm. After much success, we expanded the program in 2017 to include participants from organizations outside PwC Canada. The program has shown measurable results in retaining top women, and participants have said they’re better equipped to take the next step in their career.

We’ve heard executives from these organizations say the program has helped them  empower top talent. What’s more, our internal participants say they’ve benefitted from the diversity of the women in the program and exposure to mentors outside of PwC Canada.

90% of our WiL alumni have stayed at PwC to build their careers

This year 14 of our new partners are WiL graduates

WiL champion blog series