A first of its kind for the business, the program, ‘Lift. Lean into Female Talent’, aims to boost confidence amongst participants by focusing on communication, building community, and leveraging the strength of support networks.
As a global company, our senior leaders are often separated by geography. The course, led by seasoned Learning and Development facilitator Fiona Taylor, is made up of 14 senior female leaders across the globe and prioritises not only leadership development but strengthening cross-border networks to establish a global community.
During each session, an internal participant or external speaker is invited to talk about the challenges they’ve faced throughout their career and the biggest lessons they’ve learnt along the way. One of the participants is Roshni Shah in her newly appointed role as Global Head of Transactional Finance.
The finance discipline is one area of our business where Flight Centre Travel Group is aiming to see more women develop leadership potential.
We recognise there is a gender imbalance in FCTG's top senior leadership roles, particularly in finance,” says Global CFO Adam Campbell.
This leadership course makes space to showcase existing talent to senior leaders in other countries. Global Leisure CFO, Belinda Rafiee, who has reached the highest finance leadership level and sits on the Global Finance Executive Team, says the leadership program is not about competency.
“Females are doing amazing in their current roles and we don’t believe there’s a competency gap. The program is about exposing our senior women to the highest management throughout our organisation globally, as well as externally, so it’s known that the talent is there,” says Belinda.
The program also serves to provide more opportunities and options for women in the business. Retention is an issue for all organisations and Flight Centre Travel Group strives to build better connections for their people on a global level.
“As well as focusing on our people by helping individuals to flourish and fulfil their Brightness of Future, the reality is: the input, views and opinions [of women] are really different to men’s,” says Adam.
“We need that level of diversity, it adds new perspectives… and as a collective workforce we’re also missing out if they’re not getting the most out of their individual careers.”
So far the leadership group has had several virtual meetings and one face-to-face meeting in Singapore in October. The group plans to hold their second in person soon.