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Some of the findings of this study are below and all of the findings have been compiled into a book called Where Have all the Senior Women Gone? published by Palgrave Macmillan.

What holds back women at work?

Over the past 40 years women have made great strides in the workplace and up until about their late 20s they progress well. Then, two things tend to slow a woman’s career progression: motherhood and the move from middle to senior management. The two gender stereotypes that still refuse to change are: women as the primary care givers and men as senior managers and leaders.

Is pay an issue?

The pay gap between men and women still means that in most cases it is the woman who stays at home to care for children. Those women who stay at work full-time face a tough juggling act of motherhood and executive career in a culture that demands 100 per cent commitment. And as women move from middle to senior management roles, informal networks, which are mostly male, grow in importance.

What did your research look for?

I often met women at mid-management level who struggled to see the path ahead. They lacked access to powerful mentors, didn’t see any role models they could identify with and were approached far less often with the juicy job assignments that would have allowed them to develop leadership skills. So I have looked closely at what helps or hinders them, focusing on the importance of getting the right job experience. It is argued that women’s career choices tend to set them on too specialist and too narrow a career track early on. I asked almost 50 successful senior women about the critical job assignments that had helped them to develop personally and that had enabled them to demonstrate to senior decision-makers that they had the right skills and experiences for the top roles.

What did you find?

There were nine critical job assignments that helped women get to their senior roles. First, an early “stretch assignment”, that allows a woman to show what she can do. She might feel she has bitten off more than she can chew but through hard work turns the assignment around and gains visibility and vital sponsorship. The next four were international assignments, people-managing responsibility, working in different environments and operational experience, to enable a woman to expand into broader management skills.

As she moves on to make her name, three more critical assignments work particularly well: being an “intrapreneur” (developing new product lines or setting up new departments); being a turnaround pro and rescuing failing businesses; and being a change agent. The last push through the glass ceiling is to take a place at the executive committee table. These roles can give women an appetite for risk-taking and tough decision-making and reaffirm their ambition to move to the top, demonstrating that they can deliver.

Source: Summary from ft.com, 24 November, 2011 

The top 50, which is compiled by an independent jury aided by Egon Zehnder International, the executive recruitment group, celebrates women who hold the ultimate (group level) responsibility for their companies and comprises the elite of female leadership across the world.

Amongst the top 50 are six leading British businesses and British female executives of substantial financial subsidiaries. These included Angela Ahrendts CEO of Burberry ranked 8th, Alison Cooper head of Imperial Tobacco at 15, at 16 Cynthia Carroll CEO of mining company Anglo American.

Ranking 30th, Harriet Green CEO of the global, multi-channel technology distribution group Premier Farnell plc and at 32, Kate Swann the prominent British retail executive, currently Chief Executive of WH Smith. Finally at 33, Ruby McGregor-Smith, chief executive of Mitie Group, one of the UK’s largest outsourcing and energy services groups.

See the full list below:

THE TOP 50

1. Irene Rosenfeld (Kraft Foods)
2. Güler Sabanci (Sabanci Holding)
3. Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo)
4. Ursula Burns (Xerox)
5. Andrea Jung (Avon Products)
6. Ellen Kullman (DuPont)
7. Dong Mingzhu (Gree Electric Appliances)
8. Angela Ahrendts (Burberry)
9. Yoshiko Shinohara (Temp Holdings)
10. Chanda Kochhar (ICICI Bank)
11. Patricia Woertz (ADM)
12. Gail Kelly (Westpac)
13. Annika Falkengren (SEB)
14. Carol Meyrowitz (TJX)
15. Alison Cooper (Imperial Tobacco)
16. Cynthia Carroll (Anglo American)
17. Nancy McKinstry (Wolters Kluwer)
18. Vinita Bali (Britannia Industries)
19. Chua Sock Koong (Singapore Telecommunications)
20. Emma Marcegaglia (Marcegaglia)
21. Li Xiaolin (China Power International Development)
22. Zhang Xin (Soho China)
23. Nahed Taher (Gulf One Investment Bank)
24. Cheung Yan (Nine Dragons Paper)
25. Monika Ribar (Panalpina)
26. Chu Lam Yiu (Huabao International Holdings)
27. Gina Reinhart (Hancock Prospecting)
28. Ilene Gordon (Corn Products International)
29. Sara Mathew (Dun & Bradstreet)
30. Harriet Green (Premier Farnell)
31. Angela Braly (WellPoint)
32. Kate Swann (WH Smith)
33. Ruby McGregor-Smith (Mitie Group)
34. Lynn Laverty Elsenhans (Sunoco)
35. Olivia Lum (Hyflux)
36. Ines Kolmsee (SKW)
37. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Biocon)
38. Anita Zucker (InterTech Group)
39. Debra Cafaro (Ventas)
40. Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller (Trumpf)
41. Janet Robinson (The New York Times Company)
42. Ho Ching (Temasek Holdings)
43. Mindy Grossman (HSN)
44. Shobhana Bhartia (HT Media)
45. Maggie Wilderotter (Frontier Communications)
46. Shikha Sharma (Axis Bank)
47. Olunfunke Iyabo Osibodu (Union Bank of Nigeria)
48. Hyun Jeong-eun (Hyundai)
49. Marie-Christine Coisne-Roquette (Sonepar)
50. Laura Sen (BJ’s)

Source: FT.com

Women only account for 34.4% of the self-employed in Europe. To raise this share, successful businesswomen will assist women entrepreneurs who established a new enterprise two to four years ago. The mentors will give these new entrepreneurs concrete advice on how to run and grow their enterprises in this early, critical phase of the businesses as well as help them to develop the necessary soft skills and coach them.

The network will cover 17 European countries; 170 mentors will participate in it.

Entrepreneurship fits well with women's life choices in particular giving them flexibility regarding the reconciliation of private and professional life, specifically concerning the time and place of work. Further, due to the economic crisis, many women that became unemployed could use their skills and knowledge, start-up their own company and create their own job.

European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani, responsible for Industry and Enterprises, said:

“It is clear that female creativity and entrepreneurial potential are the most underexploited source of economic growth and new jobs that should be further developed in Europe. In a time of crisis we cannot afford to forgo this potential. Having more women entrepreneurs will economically empower women and contribute to growth.”

For more information: European Commission

Background - Selection of mentors

Mentors will be selected among businesswomen (or businessmen) who have personal experience of owning and managing a SME successfully for at least five years and are aware of specific challenges that women entrepreneurs face and are ready and willing to share their knowledge and know-how with their mentorees on a volunteering basis (i.e., without remuneration), are available to meet them regularly for a minimum of one year and are willing to engage with at least two mentorees.

The mentors shall meet with their mentorees regularly and discuss with them current as well as strategic issues of the management of the mentorees' companies, helping them to build / acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and confidence/mindset. To avoid conflicts of interest, mentors are not allowed to take any economic interest in their mentorees' companies.

The potential of women entrepreneurs in creating economic growth and new jobs:

• In the USA the Women Presidents’ Organisations (WPOs) released the latest figures of the 50 fastest growing women-owned/led companies in North America. The Top 50 generated a combined $4.1 billion in 2010 revenues (mean of $82.7 million) and collectively employed 24,650 in 2010 (projected average for 2011 is 557 employees per company).

• The UK government in its WES (The European network to promote women's enterpreneurship) 2008 report mentions that women are the largest underrepresented group in terms of participation in enterprise. Only 15% of the 4.7 million UK enterprises are majority women-led and if women started businesses at the same rate as men there would be 150,000 extra start-ups each year in the UK. If the UK matched US levels of female entrepreneurship there would be 900,000 more businesses in the UK.

• In Sweden in 2008 more than 131 000 companies were run by women having more than € 35 billion in total turn-over, employing around 358 000 people and paying their employees more than 6 billion Euros in salaries.

Women enterprise differently than men, therefore women-specific support measures are needed:

• Firstly, women attach more importance to family circumstances when considering setting up a business (61% versus 49% in the case of men). They will think very carefully about probabilities of success and examine every potential source of failure in detail before they use the family house as collateral and/or family savings as capital to start-up their business.

• Secondly, in most cases, when women decide to start up a new company, they keep their former jobs and carry out both activities in parallel for some time: in this respect, one can say that women are more cautious than men and their awareness of risk of failure is more developed.

• Thirdly, women take over existing businesses after a longer testing period than men, once they are familiar with the companies’ activities (because of heritage, separation or divorce from a business partner, etc.).

• The fourth particularity is financing: women's start-ups use less capital than men's and have less equity.

• Finally, women entrepreneurs have compared to men a lower but steadier growth. This often means less risk for failure.

The European Network of Mentors for Women Entrepreneurs is one of the actions proposed in the 2011 Review of the Small Business Act for Europe. It will cover 17 countries (Albania, Belgium, Cyprus, FYROM, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom).

The home secretary, who is also the women's and equalities minister, outlined a £2m scheme that will see 5,000 volunteer mentors trained by next year to provide role models for female entrepreneurs as part of the wider economic recovery plan. As research shows women are only half as likely as men to be engaged in entrepreneurial activity. This is just one of a broad package of measures the government has put in place to support women through the current economic challenges.

Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities Theresa May said: 'For too long we have been overlooking the skills, experience and talents of women.

'Better use of women's skills could be worth billions of pounds to our economy each year so that is why this government is opening up more opportunities. This support package will help those who want to start or grow their own business.

'This is real, practical help, at a time when we need to find new ways of boosting enterprise and growth. 'This will be good for the economy and good for women.'

Recent research by Delta Economics shows women who want to start their own businesses often have specific concerns around issues such as access to finance, building confidence, work life balance and working from home. It shows women also have different motivations for starting businesses, different goals and different target markets to men, which is why mentors trained specifically to reflect the needs of women will be a valuable resource.

The Home Secretary also announced today that the government will establish a Women's Business Council, to provide advice to government on what it can do to maximise women's contribution to future economic growth.

The announcement follows a wide-ranging consultation the government has carried out with women to ensure their voices are being listened to and are informing government policy.

One of the key findings was that women felt there was a need for greater flexibility from employers, which the government will address by extending flexible working to all employees and by allowing parents to choose how best to share their parental leave after having a baby.

Source: Home Office

The report shows how the progress of women to positions of authority in Scotland, and in Britain, has been tortuously slow. As well as discussing the slow rate of change in gender equality, strong figures & facts were also released – ‘that more than 5,400 women are missing from Britain's 26,000 most powerful posts.’

The commission found that the proportion of female cabinet ministers was 17.4% – or four women. And that although women make up 51% of the British population yet the average female representation in selected ‘top jobs’ (within the FTSE 100 & FTSE 250) in Great Britain is only 10.2%.

The report summary highlighted the challenge ahead. The slow pace of change in gender equality and ended with - barriers need to be addressed and ‘harness women’s skills and experience because it makes good business sense’.

Read the full 'The Sex & Power 2011' report.

The 2011 Sex and Power Report , an index of women in positions of power and influence, shows a trend which is not abating; while women make progress in some sectors, that progress regularly stalls or even reverses in other sectors. It is a trend of waxing and waning, not one of constant upward movement.

Source: Life аnd style: Women | guardian.co.uk

“This is such an important inspirational list – as someone who has never fitted into the typical academic learning style I applaud City & Guilds for creating this list and for those individuals honest enough to share with all the alternative routes to success. ”

Celebrities include Dragons’ Den star Deborah Meaden (position 63 with £40m), celebrity chef Jamie Oliver (position 33rd with £106m) and motor racing boss Ron Dennis (position 20th place with £117m). All feature in a new rich list designed to demonstrate the importance of vocational qualifications.

This is the seventh edition of the City & Guilds Vocational Rich List, updated this year to celebrate WorldSkills London 2011 - the world's biggest skills competition - which showcases the exceptional talents and ambitions of young people in the UK.

Source:  http://www.startups.co.uk/dragons-den-star-deborah-meaden-features-on-vocational-rich-list.html

Elaine is the chair of the digital and creative cluster on Wirral and gives her time freely to teach entrepreneurs how social media can be used for business.

Elaine Owen said, "I'm really honoured to be asked and very excited that Google are investing in Liverpool City region."

Anyone interested in attending the local Wirral juice bars should register interest via the online form.

Register online for the Google Juice Bars.

The article that will be discussed can be found within the Guardian, read the full article here.

From left to right:  Wendy Bowers, Elaine Owen, Russell Yates, Eleni Arvaniti, Theodora Filopoulou, Dr. Chrysostomos Stylios