#champion - Rick Rattray
RICK RATTRAY, MANAGING DIRECTOR
ILCS GLOBALFOUNDATIONS | NEW YORK
Who has been your source of inspiration and role model to get where you are now?
My grandmother. She was the president of her own company while also balancing motherhood and a life-threatening illness (that ultimately resulted in 17 surgeries and the loss of her right arm). She demonstrated a compassionate, yet driven energy that inspired all who knew her into helping her accomplish goals she’d set. She’s one of my dominant leadership role models.
Have women in your country enough opportunities to flourish and grow to the full extent of their potential?
I don’t think so. The evidence is in the results: far too few women in leadership roles despite their roughly 50% makeup in the population as a whole. My own experiences with leadership teams has me concluding that women tend to exhibit – if anything – more of the best leadership characteristics in the workplace. An HBR article confirms this, stating; “at every level, more women were rated by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports, and their other associates as better overall leaders than their male counterparts — and the higher the level, the wider that gap grows.” (“Are Women Better Leaders than Men?” Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, Harvard Business Review, March 15, 2012). Given this, the fact that almost 80% of senior executives are men seems a bit out-of-whack in a market economic system that prides itself on being competitive.