Mind the gap.
Despite what we may believe, there’s still a lot to do to close the gender gap. The latest study from SISTA and BCG reveals that in 2022, women-founded startups in key European markets accounted for only 10% of startups created, 7% of fundraisings carried out and only 2% of funds raised. The situation is as alarming in the corporate world, where even tech companies don’t do better than traditional ones in terms of female representation in the C-level suite.
Women generally face both internal and external barriers to growth. In most companies, women hit a glass ceiling at a certain level and are less likely to be put forward for senior roles. They’re also more likely to have limiting beliefs when it comes to career growth.
To change mindsets, we must show women the possibilities ahead and engage allies and advocates at the leadership level and throughout the organization.
Meet Taline Mouradian, Creative Business Partner for Google in Paris and Co-Chair for Women@Google in France.
Taline is celebrating 20 years of working in the advertising industry this year. She spent the first part of her career in strategy roles in creative agencies, and today as Creative Business Partner, she leads and manages Google and YouTube’s creative support to CPG, Direct to Consumer, Retail and eCommerce clients. Because one of her biggest strengths is connecting (people, ideas, and things), she also supports Google France towards more equity and diversity as the co-chair of Women@Google, Google’s biggest employee resource group.
Why is Diversity important for you personally? Have you seen it impact Creativity, Innovation and, ultimately, Growth at Google?
Being the only Armenian in my class growing up and a rare young woman sitting on exec committees in advertising agencies — both experiences felt like a privilege and a challenge. It required extra effort to own the room, but clients and peers valued my fresh perspective.
Diversity increases creativity and ultimately impacts the bottom line. According to McKinsey, most diverse companies are now more likely than ever to outperform financially. At Google, diversity has always been part of the company’s DNA: our mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.
Diversity makes us think differently about the design process of our products too, and drives innovation. Last year Google was awarded a Grand Prix at Cannes for Pixel’s “Real Tone” campaign, which celebrated the design of Google’s most inclusive camera, with a strong focus on people with darker skin tones, who historically haven’t been represented accurately on camera technology.
The Women@Google initiative works in conjunction with inclusive practices at product development, marketing and HR levels. Our role is to set up the scene for gender equality & more diversity at Google and in France through our internal and external chapters. Internally, by becoming a role model in terms of recruitment, retention & female promotion, through training, role modelling and mentoring. Externally, by sharing our skills, knowledge and experience, to give girls and women the tools to succeed in the digital world and the willingness to embrace digital careers.
What’s on your leadership agenda? Where are you focusing your energy?
In 2023, Women@Google in Paris will be focusing on 3 priorities:
- Grow our community impact by supporting external partners like SISTA, which reduces funding inequalities between male and female entrepreneurs, or Google Ateliers Numériques, which supports entrepreneurs, students and job seekers in the development of their digital skills. We’re also on a mission to inspire more girls to study science and tech with our Mind the Gap program.
- Support career development opportunities for our female employees, especially through mentoring and role modelling. We’re kicking off the 4th edition of our site-wide mentoring program, where 60 senior Googlers of all genders mentor female Googlers for a year. And on role modelling, we run very successful Power Breakfasts where small groups of Googlers can ask Directors and VPs their burning career questions in a safe space.
- Our last priority, and probably the most critical one, is allyship. This is common ground for all ERGs: how can we get more employees and leaders to support underrepresented communities? It’s a mix of raising awareness, providing the right educational resources, and giving airtime to the best allies so they can inspire others.
And lastly, we want the world to know about the great impact you are already making!
First, we measure impact through the reach of our actions. In H1 2023 the Women@Google initiatives for France directly reached over 500 people at Google and beyond. Our Career Chats attract top speakers from around the globe, like Google X’s Managing Director Eugénie Rives or Global Client President Karen Sauder, and get a massive turnout. Most of our Power Breakfast events are also fully booked.
Our second measure of success is qualitative: it’s the intangible impact of our actions, the mindset change. After a recent event organized with SISTA, which emphasized the widening gender gap in tech, several male managers who were attending reached out asking how they could better support their female reports and colleagues. The mindset change also happens when conversations that were once uncomfortable begin to surface.
In the main building of Google France, of all the meeting rooms bearing the name of a person, 90% of them bear that of a man… So, for Women’s History Month, for each of these rooms, we shared the inspiring stories of women or power couples in arts, sciences and humanities. For instance, the story of Marie-Anne Lavoisier, a chemist like her famed husband Antoine Lavoisier, whose dowry financed their research laboratory, was displayed outside the Lavoisier meeting room for all of March. We “renamed” 40 meeting rooms in collaboration with other ERGs in order to include Arab, Black, Asian, gay, trans and disabled women, and therefore bring light to these invisible stories.
This is the beginning of a wider conversation on how to make all women more visible in our company culture.
