Advancing Women Leaders - Building the Bench and Filling the Pipeline
Women have reached unprecedented heights of authority, responsibility, influence, wealth and power in the last few years. We have watched women assume the roles of Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Chancellor of Germany, President of the European Union and President of Harvard University. Women have crashed through the barriers to leadership in Chile and Liberia establishing firsts for women on their continents. This is a historic and critical period during which the cause of women and leadership can be advanced powerfully or undermined and arrested tragically. Much rests on the shoulders of this visible group of women who have attained leadership roles across the sectors and across the globe. Their viability, sustainability and quality of leadership will "hurry history" to greater gender parity or delay it. This Board Leadership Initiative seeks to utilize fully and enhance the opportunities provided by Harvard to strengthen these current and future leaders. In collaboration with its strategic partner, the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP), the Women's Leadership Board is focusing on four levels of current and future leaders:
- Global Leaders - The Leadership Initiative ensures that prominent women who are sitting and former heads of State and Government, Chairwomen of business or major international governance bodies and major NGO leaders are given opportunities to be featured speakers at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, to spend time as leaders in residence, to access relevant expertise and faculty research and to utilize talented students as interns in their country or organization. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Queen Rania of Jordan and President Vike Freiberger of Latvia are representative of leaders at this level.
- Potential Successors - These are the individuals who often work closely with a current leader and lead an organization or a nation to succeed. They must have talent, ambition and leadership ability to assume greater responsibility. This group includes rising stars in organizations and "leaders in waiting" such as government ministers and leaders in Parliament. The initiative sponsors women at this level for select executive training at the Harvard Kennedy School. Around this formalized training and in collaboration with the leadership of WAPPP, the Board has developed a Build the Bench program to provide specialized skills, training and address gaps in expertise for this next wave of women leaders. Senator Gloria Scott of Liberia, Senator Lhosa Ramposa of Rwanda and International Security Advisor, Amal Jadou, of Palestine are examples of women in this category.
- Emerging Leaders - This level addresses the need to continually fill the pipeline with talented women. It ensures that qualified women have equal access to education and training offered by Harvard's Kennedy School and strengthens the WAPPP to support and nurture students while at Harvard. Graduate fellowship support, internships, and research travel grants are extended to talented emerging leaders.
- Future Leaders - Young women around the world must be empowered and nurtured to seize the opportunity of the future. Harvard can be a training ground for the brightest and boldest of these young women as they prepare for their careers and lives. The Leadership Initiative sponsors extraordinary undergraduate women from developing countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and South America to study at the Harvard Summer School. While at Harvard, the girls participate in a series of intensive leadership training seminars developed by the WLB. The seminars address ethics and values while providing leadership skills and management tools. The young women are guided in the development of a social impact project to undertake when they return to their countries. These projects are monitored and supported to completion by Board members.