Agribusiness entrepreneur Bridgit Hawkins says the gender bias in primary sector leadership means it is missing out on a wealth of talent vital to its future goals. Colin Williscroft reports.
About 80% of those who hold senior leadership roles in New Zealand primary sector companies are men, despite women making up more than half of graduates in agricultural fields.
A new project aims to challenge that.
Agribusiness entrepreneur Bridgit Hawkins has launched Fields Of Change to begin what she describes as a long-overdue conversation about women’s leadership in agriculture, to find out why the sector is missing a generation of women business leaders, which will affect its ability to remain world-leading.
Hawkins, who was raised on a Reporoa sheep and beef farm, is the founder of agricultural technology solutions company Regen and chief sustainability officer at CropX Technologies. She says diversity and female leadership is vital in cultivating a sector that is responsive to challenges and opportunities.
The lack of women in leadership roles today, she says, is the same as it was when she started her career after graduating from Massey with an ag science degree in the late 1980s.
“There’s fundamentally something that’s not happening in terms of how our major organisations are structured and the type of programmes they have in place. Nothing is different now from the 80s and 90s,” Hawkins said.
“But nothing will change by itself. We need to ask, ‘why is that?’
“It’s highly unlikely the reason there are very few women in senior leadership is that they don’t want to be there, or that they’re not confident enough.”
Hawkins says more than half the places in graduate programmes run by large primary sector companies are filled by women, so where do they go?
“We need to understand that to ask what needs to change to ensure more of them actually have a career path right through to the top of organisations,” she said.
“We must advocate for better opportunities for women, who tend to disappear within our agribusiness sector at middle management, hitting a ceiling and missing out on crucial pathways to executive leadership opportunities, where they could create positive change and have real impact in day-to-day operations.
“If we accept the status quo is okay, then we are leaving out 50% of the talent pool to help lead our businesses into an unprecedented time of change.”
She says the idea behind Fields of Change is to initially raise awareness about the issue, to start a conversation and open up a place for women in the sector to come forward and share their experiences.
“But I’m also very keen to connect with any of the organisations in the sector that want to talk about it and ask what they can do,” she said.
“How can they go from where they are today to a place where they have a more diverse workforce from the bottom right through to the top; to work with them and support them to look at what the barriers might be in their situation, or what needs to be different – what new programmes they might need to implement to achieve that.”
It’s all about taking collective action and as part of the process, Hawkins plans to work with a wide range of people and groups like the Agri-Women’s Development Trust.
“I’m not for a moment saying I’ve got the answer. What I am saying is I can be part of elevating the issue,” she said.
“I’ve got an opportunity to put significant time into this and keep it moving, to be a connector between different groups and different initiatives.
“I’ve spoken to many people leading up to this and I’ve not had a single person say it’s a bad idea.
“What I’m aiming to do is find a place to collect information and experiences and to then ask, ‘Out of all these different ideas people have got, what’s some positive action that we can take?’”
She says that while women hold some board roles in agribusiness, their impact is limited as that is not where financial decision-making lies.
“Looking at some of the major companies in the primary sector, only a little over 10% of the CEOs, and only just over 20% of the senior leadership teams are women. That’s pretty poor,” she said.
“It isn’t just about saying we’ve got equal rights so we should be sitting there. It’s about saying diversity is incredibly important to innovation, to strategy, to your thinking about how you approach complex, challenging problems.
“And we haven’t got it, so we’re not going to be doing as well as we could.
“This project is just saying the status quo is not our future, we need to change it.
“Maybe we should have looked at this 10 or 20 years ago but we didn’t, so let’s look forward now and ask what we need to do to make positive change that will benefit all businesses and the wider sector.”
To find out more, go to fieldsofchange.org.nz
