00:00If women represent nearly half of the global workforce,
00:04Why do they continue to be a minority in the spaces where decisions are made?
00:09That was the question the former Prime Minister of Iceland asked herself.
00:12Katrin Jakobsdotir, during a conversation with the World Economic Forum.
00:17His response was an invitation: to stop getting stuck in rhetoric.
00:20and begin to promote structural changes that will allow us to build a more egalitarian society.
00:26But how big is that gap, really?
00:28Let's start with the data. According to the report on closing the gender gap in the workplace
00:32At the World Economic Forum's top management level, women hold only 25% of senior management positions.
00:39and 29% of board positions worldwide. And when you look at the positions
00:44In higher positions, the difference is even more evident. Only 19% of CEO positions and barely
00:50he
00:515% of board chairmanships are held by women. In Colombia,
00:56The outlook also presents significant challenges. According to DANE, the participation gap
01:00The gap between men and women in the workplace is 24 percentage points. There is another piece of data that helps to understand
01:06Why? The Marketing Observatory of EAN University, with information from the Department
01:11National Statistics and the analysis of 8,034 real job vacancies in the labor market in 2025,
01:17It found that 63% of women were outside of formal employment, compared to 33.1% of men.
01:24men.
01:24In addition, 9.3 million women appeared as inactive due to taking on caregiving responsibilities.
01:30and unpaid domestic work. The data shows the scale of the problem.
01:34The next question is how to begin changing that reality. For Rosita Manrique,
01:39Co-founder and CEO of Origen Leadership Network, it all starts with the education of the
01:44girls and boys so that each one can find new ways to fulfill their role and not
01:49simply reproducing inherited stereotypes. But the transformation doesn't end there. It also
01:54The conversation needs to change. As María Andrea Trujillo and Alexander Guzmán assert,
01:59co-directors of the Center for Corporate Governance Studies at CESA, the question should no longer
02:04The question is whether there are women prepared to lead. The evidence shows that there are. The real challenge
02:10It's about creating the conditions for that talent to reach the spaces where decisions are made.
02:15And how to achieve this? They summarize it in four concrete actions: Making female role models visible,
02:21strengthen training for corporate governance positions, expand access networks
02:26to leadership positions and eliminate bias in selection processes. But even before
02:31When discussing boards of directors or selection processes, there is a fundamental point: redistributing the tasks of
02:37care and household, measure job opportunities from a gender perspective and understand
02:42That equality is indeed possible. That is the proposal of Joana Moreno Ceballos, researcher and founder.
02:48from the Marketing Observatory of EAN University. And the fact is, there isn't just one barrier. There are many.
02:54The variables that need to be transformed. One of them has to do with the way we understand leadership.
02:59Rosa Milena Muñoz Villanueva, mentor at the Entrepreneurship Center of the University of the Andes,
03:04It suggests that women tend to lead differently. Many don't fit the model.
03:10traditional because their motivations respond to values such as care, empathy, solidarity
03:16and reciprocity, in addition to profitability. In other words, they don't just focus on the
03:21economic results also place at the center the people who make those results possible.
03:27However, this path doesn't depend solely on women. What responsibilities does the sector have?
03:33public and private sectors? According to Stephanie Lavoe, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs and
03:38Regarding student affairs at Uniminuto, the State has three major responsibilities. To act as
03:43regulator, become an exemplary employer and be a guarantor through measurement, inspection and
03:49Accountability. From the private sector side, CESA experts point out that they are
03:54Companies decide how to form their boards of directors, how to identify and develop
03:59talent, how they prepare for the succession of their leaders, and what type of organizational culture they have.
04:04They promote. There is another scenario that also deserves attention. What happens when a woman decides
04:09For Rosa Milena Muñoz Villanueva, financial institutions should facilitate starting a business.
04:15Access to credit with a gender perspective. But not only that, it is also necessary to recognize
04:20the impact of these ventures beyond traditional economic indicators.
04:25Because talent exists. But quotas and compromises also exist. What's still needed is change.
04:30cultural and structural factors in which we all have a role. The proof is that even in 2026, there is barely
04:3612.5% of companies in Colombia have a woman as president. And as Claudia recalls
04:42Díaz Armiento, director of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Management at the School of
04:46Business studies at Universidad del Norte show that experience demonstrates that companies advance more when the
04:52Female leadership is no longer seen as a diversity initiative and is becoming a
04:58talent and business strategy. In other words, the challenge is no longer to prove that they exist
05:03Women prepared to lead. The real challenge is building the conditions for them to do so.
05:08that talent reaches the spaces where decisions are made.
Comentarios