Among other things, attention usually turns, with the approaching International Women’s Day, to women’s participation in the job market. According to a survey by the Ethos Institute, as late as in 2019, the percentage of women company presidents remains below 7%.
Delphos, an insurance market service provider, has positively contributed to this still below ideal level , with its vice-president, Elisabete Prado, who has been in the company for over 30 years, 17 of which as Director and almost two as Vice President.
The executive believes that women’s interest in the insurance market has been growing on account of the changes to the premises which have freed women’s choices. In the past, the insurance market bore the stigma of being more appropriate for men, maybe for the fact of having as its intrinsic mathematical or vocational requirements that were not, mistakenly, ascribed to women. The Actuarial Sciences course was predominantly attended by men, as in the society’s imagination, “women and math didn’t go together” , a thought which also permated the technological areas , she evaluates.
Statistics show that, currently, predominance is still male-oriented in high-level company management , but that, in middle management, women represent more than 50% of the total. “This makes it inexorable that, in the future, there will be more equitable distribution in senior management”, says Elisabete Prado.
At Delphos, she assures, competences have never been judged by gender. “What happened was that, in the past, women were more interested in the administrative or analytical areas. Currently, in technology, approximately one third of the team is comprised by women, which is a good indicator, she says.
There is a great deal of in-house incentive for this scenario to continue moving, as Elisabete is an actuarial professional , by transting between the technical and business areas of the company, she reached the second most important position in the company.
“Each step was the target of a hard-fought conquest, devoid of any kind of privilege”, complements the vice president.
And she advires, “we cannot lose sight of the fact that we, women, still need to prove ouraelves more than men do. We need to study hard, we need to always update ourselves, and have a holistic view on the subjects related to the objectives we wish to reach or to the positions we seek.
And last, but not least, not allow our delicate stance be mistaken for a sign of weakness”.
Source : segs.com.br
