Female Talent in Emerging Markets

A yearlong study called “In Plain Sight: Female Talent in Emerging Markets", supported by Bloomberg, Booz & Company, Intel, Pfizer and Siemens came to surprising conclusions about the potential of women in emerging markets.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, a professor at Columbia University and founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy, is essentially saying in this study that over half of college graduates in these markets are now female, and they've been somewhat neglected in terms of the war for talent.

Although there are huge populations involved and large pools of educated people, only 10% to 15% of the college-graduate population of China and India are well-prepared enough to be part of a management track at a local corporation. So the effective highly qualified pool of people is quite limited. It would therefore make a lot of sense, given the backdrop just described, to be much more proactive with the recruiting and training of females in these markets.

Siemens is positively mentioned in the study for having a new program called the Engaging BRIC and ME Talent Program. It is a very targeted approach to giving specially tailored growth opportunities to women and men.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett also is the founding chair of the Hidden Brain Drain Task Force—a group of 56 global companies and organizations committed to fully realizing female and multicultural talent.