Caroline Turner began her career as a successful lawyer in a private practice, becoming partner in a large regional firm in the demanding area of securities law and mergers and acquisitions. Later, she climbed the corporate ladder at Coors Brewing Company and its parent company (now MillerCoors and MolsonCoors) to become the company’s first female Senior Vice President.

Turner is now a business consultant, advising clients on creating cultures of inclusion, facilitating workshops and delivering speeches. She is a member of the board of directors for Women’s Vision Foundation, which provides leadership development for corporate women and helps its corporate members engage, retain and promote women.

Catalyst and McKinsey have both shown correlations between gender diversity in leadership and bottom line results. Catalyst has shown that Fortune 500 companies with more women at the "C-level" and on boards of directors have higher returns on equity, capital and sales. McKinsey reports that European companies with more women in positions of influence outperform their competitors on both qualitative and financial measures including stock price growth. Neither McKinsey nor Catalyst asserts that there is a causal link between profits and having more women in management. But, McKinsey concludes, the facts argue in "[favor] of greater gender diversity."

I suggest two explanations for why companies with greater gender diversity do better. First, gender diversity in a group makes it more likely that there is a balance of masculine and feminine approaches to work. That balance leads to better decisions and outcomes. Second, the fact that an organization has gender diversity in leadership is an indicator that the culture is inclusive and, therefore, engagement is broad and deep. Both inclusiveness and high levels of engagement have been shown to drive bottom line results.

A Balance of Masculine and Feminine Approaches