A recorded TV/YouTube interview celebrating Women's Equality Day. Hosts and Edie Frazier (CEO of Women's Business Collaborative) review the history of the day (19th Amendment; 1971 Congressional recognition), current equity gaps (overall pay parity ~82¢ on the dollar; lower for Hispanic and Black women at ~64¢–72¢), and organizational efforts to accelerate gender equity. They describe Women’s Business Collaborative as a nonprofit launched in 2019 working with 56 partner organizations around nine priority areas (e.g., more women CEOs, C-suite roles, board seats) and cite challenges such as the loss of roughly 2 million women from the workforce.
Welcome back, everyone. 7:48 on our Thursday morning. Today we are celebrating Women's Equality Day in honor of the right to vote, but also a time to talk about all things equality and how to still get there. CEO of Women's Business Collaborative, Edie Frazier joins us this morning with more on empowering women in the workplace. Good morning, Edie. Thanks for being with us.
Good morning, Evan. And to all, happy Women's Equality Day.
So what are we celebrating today? Tell people who are just waking up this morning, maybe turning on their tv, wondering what this holiday is all about. What is the message for people to know going into today?
Let's look back as Women's Business Collaborative is a movement, the movement that started 101 years ago for women's right to vote. So that made the passage of the 19th Amendment, which is the right to vote, and in 1971, the formal passage in Congress of Women's Equality Day. And Evan, you and I will talk about where are we now and where are we going as we all move faster together. Whether you're working for companies or whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you're working with a nonprofit organization, we want to celebrate all women and all women of color with you in San Diego, with such a big Latinx and Latina population and with our focus on making sure all women of color are equal, we will also review that because on the pay parity side, it is still about 82 cents on a dollar. So we've moved up. But if we go to those that are Hispanic or black, our numbers are more like 64, 72 cents on a dollar. And until we get equity across the board, we will continue to march. But we choose to celebrate all the positives. And we'll talk through some of that today about women entrepreneurs, women in the business world, with corporations, and what we're all doing together to collaborate to drive change and celebrate success.
And so I mean, obviously, like we've mentioned, there have been a lot of strides that have been made in terms of women's equality, but it is still something that needs to be talked about more. You talked about that pay gap in there. Tell us how Women's Business Collaborative is able to help.
Evan, thanks. So just look back with us and we have reached a miracle. We started a nonprofit back in 2019 with a purpose to really build equal position pay and power. We are working with 56 women's business organizations that have never collaborated. They always competed. And Evan, we're focusing together with all the companies and with the organizations on nine big areas. So let me just highlight those. And where are we? So one is to get more women CEOs. And if we look, we're not only interested in the Fortune 500 where there are about 8.4% women, only two black women CEOs, and we don't have one Hispanic in the top, but we're looking at all companies, entrepreneurs above 100 million and all of those that we can celebrate change. And then we're working at women in the C suite and women of color and trying to get women running businesses with P and L within the big companies. And we're making huge progress. And yet we'll talk about losing 2 million women in the workforce. And the third area, we are working with 16 organizations moving women on corporate boards. And there's been a total sea change. It helped with George Floyd and all the other areas to make companies focus. And the investment banks stood up. California stood up. California passed.
Katie, we only a few seconds left. I got to cut you off. I'm sorry. We're running out of time. But I want to thank you so much for being with us. We'll be right back after this quick break.
