CEW’s new chief says access for women lifts economic productivity

CEW chief Marie Festa says gender equity helps all Australians through higher economic productivity.

Marie Festa is the CEO of Chief Executive Women. Picture: Esteban La Tessa

Marie Festa says she wants to accelerate the work of the 1000 women she is now leading as the new CEO of Chief Executive Women.

And she says it’s time to shift the narrative of the organisation and make it clear gender equity is not a women’s-only issue but about lifting the productivity of the entire Australian economy.

“This is not about wokeness, this is about using a whole demographic that we have to solve a problem that we’re facing immediately,” Ms Festa said.

“All the statistics tell you we are nowhere near gender equity from an economic standpoint and for some of the numbers it’s going to take 100 years. I don’t think we should apologise.”

And no, she doesn’t think an all-female lobby group is outdated: “If you look at the last census … we’ve got 18 women CEOs in the ASX 300,” she said.

“There is so much work yet to be done. I was reflecting on this when I was going to take up the job – the fact that we have an organisation that has 1000-plus members who want to come together to progress this cause. I think it is fantastic.”

Ms Festa has joined CEW after more than 20 years’ experience in the corporate world including at Vicinity Centres, Afterpay, Mirvac, Gloucester Coal and Asciano.

She is expected to work closely in a public advocacy role with the CEW president, ex-Mirvac boss Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz.

Ms Festa said CEW, which began in 1985, had evolved beyond female C-Suite and board directors and is now positioned to improve the situation for all women.

“We shouldn’t lose the aspirational nature of CEW which creates the incentive for women to want to get into those leadership ranks because the benefits that come from having more women in leadership … is a good thing for everyone,” she said.

“We’ve got over 1000 members now and we have a number of different types of women in different situations.

“It’s really about women who can influence and who can drive the change that we need.

“(But) we want to be an organisation that works for all women, to create as much inclusivity and as much benefit as possible, and to create the opportunities that then lead to women getting into leadership positions.

“We need to have more women at the decision-making table because that leads to the removal of unconscious bias that might exist.

“We’ve got to address the gender pay gap and part of that is to actually have more women in leadership, and also across different sectors.”

Affordable early childhood education and care was a priority for CEW, Ms Festa said, along with “making sure we have equal paid parental leave provisions so that those gender norms can start to change and women who want to work aren’t restricted from doing that”.