Looking around our world today, many indicators show that our society has taken great strides toward gender balance. Many countries have had or currently have a female head of state and women now outnumber men at some of the world leading universities. But this balance, unfortunately, is not found everywhere. The fact that the corporate glass ceiling remains largely intact shows us that that we are not as far along as we should be in the business realm. Although many companies have advocated for inclusion over the years, the business community as a whole still lacks gender balance: today, the average salary for women is equivalent to the average salary of men a decade ago.

As the leader of Sodexo, a company of 420,000 men and women, I believe that we need to address gender balance not only for the sake of equality, but for the sake of our business as well. We are one of the largest employers in the world, and we serve 75 million consumers every day: the composition of our teams must resemble the people we serve. Gender balance is not only our professional responsibility but also a key pillar in the way we conduct our business.

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