Korn Ferry and The Rockefeller Foundation Form Alliance
April 17, 2017 – Korn Ferry has partnered with The Rockefeller Foundation’s “100×25” campaign, a multi-faceted effort uniting organizations to help achieve the goal of advancing 100 women to the top role at Fortune 500 companies by 2025.
The goal of the alliance is to develop a nuanced understanding of the common strengths and areas of development that companies should focus on to build robust pipelines of high-potential women, and create customized organizational and development programs for women at companies of all sizes.
A team of Korn Ferry consultants in CEO succession planning, assessment, development, research, marketing, and organizational effectiveness will work with The Rockefeller Foundation to achieve the goal of 100×25. Specifically, Korn Ferry will:
- Leverage its executive network to conduct interviews and psychometric assessments with more than 35 current and recent female CEOs to identify the unique competencies, experiences, traits, and drivers that have made them successful;
- Synthesize learnings from these interviews with existing Korn Ferry data on over four million executives, and publish findings from an analysis of high-potential female executives in the pipeline of five to 10 beta Fortune 500s into a publicly shared report;
- Test resulting insights with the group of beta companies to improve their culture and landscape of talent, or enhance organizational programs to foster support, development, and promotion of women into executive roles.
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“We are proud to welcome Korn Ferry to the 100×25 campaign, leveraging their deep expertise to develop market-driven solutions to tackle the stubborn challenge of ensuring greater gender diversity in corporate America,” said Judith Rodin, president of The Rockefeller Foundation. “As a leading global talent advisory firm, Korn Ferry has the ability to move companies toward evidence-based practices and programs that support development and a more inclusive pipeline of women leaders.” Together, she said, the two organizations will build an “actionable roadmap” for companies that have set gender equity goals, but struggle to implement them from the entry-level to the C-suite.
“For several decades, there has been talk about gender equity in top leadership roles,” said Jane Edison Stevenson, vice chairman, board & CEO services for Korn Ferry. “In reality, we have reached a plateau. It has been difficult to shift from the stated desire of companies to have more women in leadership positions to tactical delivery that will ensure women are in the talent pipeline.” She said Korn Ferry is thrilled to work with The Rockefeller Foundation to create “an avenue to change outcomes” and make these ideals a reality.
The 100×25 campaign is part of The Rockefeller Foundation’s inclusive economies portfolio, which is made up of initiatives that aim to create more opportunities for more people around the world regardless of their age, gender, or economic background.
Contributed by Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor, Hunt Scanlon Media
