SAICA is hosting a series of 8 events over 4 weeks to celebrate Women’s Month. The series is driven by inspirational, motivated and successful women, and advances gender equality while challenging the status quo. A poll conducted at the first session revealed that 85% of respondents (280 out of 305 responses) believed that gender bias hinders female progress in the workplace, and attendees offered several suggestions on how this can be redressed.
The theme for week one was Gender Diversity Matters, and was attended by over 1,000 people. A brief summary thereof can be found below.
Are Unconscious biases stalling gender progress? (Click to view the recording)
03 August 2020
Dr. Natasha Winkler-Titus provided an excellent definition of unconscious bias that resonated with many of the male viewers. Robust discussions were held regarding how organizations can address unconscious biases and what the facilitator called “invisible demons” that women have to deal with in their professional lives. Viewers engaged in rich debate on the chat as well, which added to the robustness of the conversation, indicating the relevance and criticality of the topic.
Our panelist were:
Thembiso Magajana ( Founder and CEO of Social Coding); Gugu Mtetwa CA(SA) (Executive: Institutional Clients Operations – Allan Gray); Parmi Natesan CA(SA) (CEO of IOD); Dr. Natasha Winkler-Titus (President Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology of South Africa (SIOPSA)) and Megan Pydigadu CA(SA)( Group Financial Director at EOH). The discussion was moderated by Dr Claudelle von Eck, founder of Brave Inflexions and former CEO of IIA(SA).
Closing the Gender Gap
Increasing Diversity – How to Develop Female Talent in Technology (Click to view the recording)
Date: 06 August 2020
Closing the Gender Gap focussed on the challenges women face at senior management and board levels, and how this can be addressed.
The second topic focussed on developing female skills in technology, which plays an increasingly important role in all industries, including our own profession. Engagements that we previously held with the Big Four reveal an increasing requirement for accountants who have programming skills. There is a significant opportunity for females to get into programming and technology and organisations such as WeCode will sponsor females, including accountants, to broaden their skills to take advantage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Our panelists were:
Closing the Gender Gap:
Liesl Bebb-Mckay – Director BBD; Tracy McKinon – Director Customer Success & Retention Africa & Middle East at Sage; Matsi Modise – Managing Director of SiMODiSA.
Increasing Diversity – How to Develop Female Talent in Technology:
Dr Sinini Ncube – Senior Software Developer CSIR; Arlene Mulder – Founder We Think Code.
