Despite the professional services sector’s investment in embedding gender-equality, negative perceptions persisted. Research showed that women in the sector still felt less
confident of progression than their male colleagues, and were significantly less likely to rate their employer’s commitment to gender diversity as high.
Such perceptions aren’t good for the sector, for women or for PwC. Despite all our work on policies and processes we clearly needed to declare and demonstrate our commitment more publicly and explicitly.
The Businesswoman of the Year Awards gave us that opportunity. Not only did it bring much-needed gender balance to PwC’s sponsorships, this partnership with Image Media (Ireland’s premier publication aimed at professional women), enhanced the firm’s reputation with – and attractiveness to – businesswomen in Ireland.
PwC’s involvement transformed what had been a ‘one-night-only’ opportunity into a year-long, always-on media sponsorship of inspiration, education and celebration of women in business. Sponsorship activity included advertising, advertorial, webcasts, panel discussions, social media and events.
The sponsorship achieved exceptional awareness, attribution and affinity scores and the proportion of experienced-hire applications received from women surged from 56% to 66% of all applications. The sponsorship also boosted the bottom-line: our female leaders, who featured in content and events, reported an increase in business as a direct result of the sponsorship.
The sponsorship delivered impressive RoI. But it’s about more than money. It’s about publicly encouraging and empowering women in our business, and every business, to succeed. And we believe you can’t put a price on that.
