Founded by 10 companies in 2013, Advance has seen steep growth and has reached 100 member companies, a threshold number that the delegates celebrated together with the new Board at the Annual General Assembly on June 17. In only six years, Advance has developed into Switzerland’s leading business association with the mission to foster gender diversity in Swiss Business and increase the number of women in leadership roles across industries.

The growing size of the organization and the ambition to make an impact call for a strategic board to set the course for continued success. “I am delighted that we could gain such high-calibre board members for Advance”, says Alkistis Petropaki, General Manager Advance. The search for candidates was accompanied on a voluntary basis by non-executive board specialists Esther-Mirjam de Boer, CEO GetDiversity, Simone Stebler, Director at Egon Zehnder, and Danica Ravaioli, CHRO Adecco Germany. “It is amazing how much support we are offered. As a non-profit organization, we are truly grateful for this. We clearly see increasing momentum for gender equality topics. I am convinced that we will see numbers of women in leadership go up over the coming years. Already, there are 30% women in lower management.* The pipeline is filling.”

*) Advance & HSG Gender Intelligence Report 2018, www.advance-hsg-report.ch

Equality Only Works if it Works Both Ways

It takes decidedly more than fostering female talent in the workforce. Men are crucial in the discussion as ambassadors, inclusive leaders and partners. They need to have equal access to opportunities that enable them to take on their share of care and family obligations without risking a career break. “Equality only works if it works both ways”, says Petra Jantzer, newly elected President Advance. “We need to design work as well as family and care support structures that enable women and men to equally participate and contribute to a thriving economy and society at large.”

Business Driven Approach

Advance is different from other organizations in that it is rooted in a systematic cross-company approach aiming to impact the whole organisation as well as individual talents. 

Advance offers companies a concrete program that explicitly includes men and supports organizations in reaching their D&I objectives to turn diversity into a competitive advantage. 
In addition to building skills and awareness, Advance runs a high-level cross-company mentoring program (with currently 65 mentoring pairs) and offers several platforms where companies connect to exchange best-practices and make them travel faster. In collaboration with the University of St. Gallen, Advance publishes latest insights on the development of diversity and inclusion based on raw data of over 250’000 employees. The Advance & HSG Gender Intelligence Report 2019 will be published on August 28. 

Advance is convinced that a gender-equal workplace is a win-win for all: men, women, business and society. It’s a proven fact that gender-mixed teams perform better, are more innovative and likely to generate more profit.

Together #weadvance faster!

A big thank you goes to PwC Switzerland for hosting our General Assembly 2019 with special thanks to Alice Koehncke Valdes for her great support!

Media contact
Alexandra Rutsch, Communication Manager Advance

alexandra.rutsch@weadvance.ch, Tel. 076 332 85 83