The latest survey by The International Network of Interim Manager Associations (INIMA) on the European Interim Management market presents a sobering picture: only 14% of interim managers are female. Poland leads with 30% female interim managers, followed by France and the UK with 20% each. Austria is slightly above average at 16%, but there is still considerable room for improvement.
I think it’s great that I learn and develop with every job. It’s reassuring to know that I can contribute my expertise no matter which company I work for.
Marei Strack, Chairwoman of DDIM e.V. – Dachgesellschaft Deutsches Interim Management, recently spoke at a round table about the challenges female managers continue to face:
“Although we have been discussing for more than 15 years how to increase the number of women on supervisory boards in Germany, there is still a gap. Throughout my entire career in the corporate world, I was always the only woman in a senior leadership position, such as Senior Vice President. But you need at least 30% women in a team to truly benefit from diversity.”
She also highlighted the different perceptions of competence: “In interim management, men and women still attribute more competence to male managers than to women. Even most men believe that a woman has to achieve much more to receive the same recognition as a man. For female interim managers, this means they have to actively ‘sell’ themselves even more than their male colleagues.”
My task is to give a decisive impulse at a certain moment, in a very specific context, to overcome a deadlocked situation.
In addition to structural hurdles, there are also familial and personal reasons that hinder women’s careers. Traditional roles in child-rearing and caring for parents play a part. Women are often more aware of the price that the required mobility and high workload of managers exact on their own family and social lives than men.
We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.
At Management Factory and Valtus, we are firmly convinced that it is essential to increase the visibility of female interim managers to ensure that our clients and our managers can realize their full potential.
An interim manager can act like a turbocharger for a company. The combination of an external perspective and work within the company is unique.
It is time to shine a brighter light on the perspectives and capabilities of female interim managers and to break down the existing barriers. The full INIMA report provides further insights into the European interim management market and is available here: INIMA Report.
As an interim manager, you can’t just kick up dust or suspend decisions. As a manager, I make all decisions as I see fit and stand by them.
In the featured image above, we present six of our outstanding interim managers from Valtus: Annelie Nässén from Sweden, Leila Mechai from France, and Irmtraud Königshofer from Austria. Additionally, we feature Sanna Reunanen from Finland, Annika Muskantor from Sweden, and Bénédicte Bertrand from France in the Valtus Alliance.