CEOX Founder, Luann Abrams, was recently asked to talk on a Chamber of Commerce panel about the need for advancing women in business. Here she talks about her first experience of being undermined in her career and what keeps her inspired to advance women.

I was two months out of college having graduated Magna cum laude from the highest-ranking aerospace engineering program in the country when I attended my first big business meeting. I walked into a room full of men in suits and I was introduced around when one of the men said, “Wow, she has great legs.” And that was the beginning of consistently and subtly, and sometimes not so subtly in the case of the leg guy, being undermined in the early days of my career. I don’t tell you this to feel sorry for me because I think this is a very common experience for women, and we all just have different versions of the same story. But in 2020 the cards remain firmly stacked against women in business. Only 6.6% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women and 0% of those are women of color. If you google CEO in your browser, you will find that only 11% of the images that come up are women. And in 2020 the World Economic Forum says that the gender pay gap is actually expanding, so it is incredibly important for me to raise awareness of the issues that women face in business that are different from the experiences of men. It is important that we take big and bold steps in both business and society. When studies and data confirm that women-led companies generate more revenue, grow faster, create more jobs, have higher stock prices, and have happier employees, it becomes not just a social imperative, but an economic imperative.