“For the past three years now, the Chair has been working to increase the awareness of professional equality for the whole student body. We have increased awareness about gender stereotypes and led workshops on SKEMA’s three French campuses, with both professionals and students, on subjects such as career management, communication and sexism in the workplace. Finally, one of the key events was the organisation of more than 50 “Live my life” programmes. Students were given the chance to observe the life of a women executive in top management for a day, develop the traditional representations of leadership and promote new role models,” explained Corinne Poroli and Stéphanie Chasserio.
The Chair will continue its work for the academic year 2019-2020 through the following events:
• A conference in Lille on 3 October to get a feedback from the participants on the “Live my life” programmes.
• A conference with our networks, including FCE (Women at the Head of Companies) in Lille, on 21 November, as part of the international entrepreneurship week where the focus will be on women entrepreneurs.
• The brainstorming workshops will be back in partnership with SKEMA student associations HeForShe and Enactus.
The Chair is also sponsoring a new online module (on the school’s K2 platform) for the prevention of sexism, which will be in the testing phase from September. Students will be able to use videos and quizzes to brainstorm ideas and work on sexism, the notion of consent (in a multicultural environment), and on the right reactions to adopt if they witness any inappropriate behaviour. This project was launched through the initiative of Julie Garnier (SKEMA BBA student), with the support of Christèle Bayoud (participant) and Alexandra Saunders (professor and deputy director of BBA in Global Management).
The Chair team comprises the following people: Eliane Bacha, Corinne Poroli, Philippe Pailot and Stéphanie Chasserio, with Marie-Paule Moreau as coordinator. The SKEMA Observatory on the Feminisation of Companies, managed by Michel Ferrary, is a stakeholder of the Chair.
[See the video]