Merit promotions and without 'anchors'
Beatriz de Dios is the Head of the Quality Department in Renault Valladolid. Only the hard work of this Engineer in a traditionally male sector has allowed her to develop her career. But the last push has come from the EEA Grants.
09.10.2014
Beatriz de Dios was one of the 40 participants in the Project Promociona first edition, within the EEA Grants Gender Equality Programme, whose aim is to encourage a higher number of women executives on Steering Committees and Boards of Directors. Mission accomplished: she has been promoted after her participation in the project.
“What sometimes prevent us from promoting is ourselves”, points out Beatriz de Dios. “One of the aspects covered in this project is how to detect and avoid our ‘anchors”, our inner limitations”. However, she also acknowledges that despite the great number of women in middle management, the higher up we climb the management ladder, the fewer women we find there because “it comes at a price that we are not always willing to pay”.
The Promociona Project consists of an intensive business training in ESADE, complemented by coaching and mentoring, without forgetting networking. Actually, Beatriz de Dios highlights the last one as one of the more enriching aspects. “We’ve created a cohesive and active group, with common interest and concerns and always planning activities”.
“I must admit that when my company offer me the opportunity to take part in this project I hesitated because of the fact that it was an ‘only women’ activity, but the experience couldn’t have been more positive. The programme is very good and the CEOE and ESADE management, excellent”, explain Beatriz de Dios. One of the main differences in regard to other mentoring programmes is that, in this particular case, each candidate has a mentor from a company that it is not their own. And all the companies are among the biggest in the world: Coca Cola, Siemens, Santander, Acciona, Facebook, IBM, Iberdrola… Or Renault, a company particularly committed with equality.
The second edition of the Promotion of women to decision-making positions project is just about to begin after the successful first edition. In this occasion, another Renault candidate will take part, Alicia Gálvez, Sales to Companies Manager, who is essentially optimistic about future progress towards equality because the mentality is changing.
About the female quotas, Beatriz and Alicia have doubts. On the one hand, they are strongly in favour of “the skills and not the numbers”, but on the other hand they recognize that without an initial or temporary push, the effective equality between men and women in business could be a too slow process.