In the News
August 3, 2024
This article by Katie Balevic in Business Insider quotes RepresentWomen's Cynthia Richie Terrell on the potential impacts of a woman president. Read an excerpt below.
If Vice President Kamala Harris ascends to the Oval Office, it could have a rippling impact on women in business everywhere.
Only two weeks into her presidential campaign, Harris has garnered overwhelming support from Democrats and narrowed former President Donald Trump's lead in swing states.
It's reminiscent of the hopes many women held in 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced off against Trump. If it happens this time, it could usher in a new age for women in positions of power.
"Having a woman as president, I think, normalizes what women's leadership looks like across everything, whether that's the private sector, public sector, education, labor, business, military," Cynthia Richie Terrell, executive director of Represent Women, which advocates for women in politics, told Business Insider. "I think a lot becomes possible overnight."
In the business world, companies with female CEOs outperform those led by men, according to the World Economic Forum. The same is true for women-led hedge funds and women-led startups.
Despite that success, women now run just 10% of Fortune 500 companies, a record-high that has remained the same since 2023.
"Those companies where women had a higher share in the board and in leadership were more likely to be profitable, and I think there's a clear connection to women in government," Richie Terrell said. "Women tend to bring those same skills, the ability to multitask, the ability to build networks, the ability to listen, which we hear a lot of times that women have a greater ability to do that."
Read the complete article here.
