Roadmap Report: Comments from New WFF Chair, Mary O'Broin
Make Room for More at the Table

It is truly an honor to serve as your Chair for the 2009-2010 year. I enjoyed meeting many of you at this year’s Annual Leadership Development Conference and am looking forward to meeting many more members in the upcoming year.

I had an opportunity to share my thoughts on ways continue to ignite our mission of “Elevating Women Leaders” at the Conference General Session on March 17 and would like to reiterate and clarify some of my key messages:
As we stand on the cusp of the third decade of the Women’s Foodservice Forum – I see new challenges, new opportunities and new deal breakers.

First, to the younger leaders in our organization, please know how important your career development is to us. We understand your quest to achieve greatness in your professional and your personal lives.

Know that the most important thing the WFF does is provide you with the tools you need to succeed and our challenge is to continue to find the ways – new ways – to bring you best-in-class leadership development so you can hone the skills you need to advance into the top jobs of our industry. We also know that you are a unique generation in the way that you learn, communicate, balance your life, prioritize work and contribute to others. The WFF has and will continue to evolve to stay relevant to your needs. Please continue to share your perspective with us. Stay involved. Help us to build a next-generation WFF that is as empowering and energizing for you as it possibly can be.
Next, to the leadership of all foodservice organizations, your opportunity is to capitalize on this engaged talent and ensure that it stays right here in our industry. As you experience the intelligence, energy and optimism of women at all levels in this industry it becomes critical to capitalize on it. Take this talent into the highest levels of your organization. It is not a just the right thing to do, it’s the right thing to do for your business.

And finally, to the women already at the table: You’ve made it. Now you need to make room for more. This will be the deal breaker. To achieve gender parity on senior teams and boards by 2020 – that’s only 11 years from now –we need to move our chairs and make room for more women at the table. There is no time to waste. If you have a choice between an equally qualified female or male candidate for a senior or top position why wouldn’t you choose the woman? If you can influence the choice between an equally qualified female or male candidate for a senior or top position, why wouldn’t you exert your influence? If you can recommend, refer, write a personal note or introduce a talented woman for a job opening or a promotion in your organization, you need to do it. Or it simply will not get done.

Women only represent 23% of the leadership on senior teams and boards in this industry. To achieve gender parity, we need to get to 50%. Conversely, if you are on a senior leadership team that is primarily female, the same applies to adding men to your team to achieve gender parity. Unfortunately, in this industry that is the exception and not the norm.

20 years ago, our original 14 WFF members bravely confronted issues head- on and set the stage for change. They issued challenges to the industry, to each other and to those who followed to ensure that we stay the course. Their work – our work – is not done. Let’s accept the challenge and continue the mission of elevating women leaders in order to advance the best industry in the world.