Succession Planning – Diversity & Inclusion

Project

A leading American multinational Fortune 500 insurance company wanted to mitigate the risk on their 10 most senior business critical leadership positions at C-level and the Operational Heads across seven of their business units in the Australia/NZ region. The business wanted to build a succession plan and pool of suitably qualified people to step into these business critical roles, should any of the executive leaders exit the business. The company wanted to benchmark the diversity ratios of their Australia/NZ operations leadership with their direct competitors in insurance in the same region as well as other aligned industries including banking, superannuation, financial services and consulting.

This project was an opportunity to improve their diversity ratios and female leadership representation and the company wanted to explore the top female leaders in the market as part of their succession planning activity.

Universe were engaged to research the competitor market from a diversity perspective, identify and profile high-calibre talent across Australia and New Zealand for 10 leadership roles.

Solution

Our dedicated research team scanned the local market, employing expert intelligence collection techniques, gathering and analysing data from a broad range of companies to provide insight into the talent landscape from a diversity perspective. This valuable insight helped the client understand how they compared and the work they needed to do to strive toward leading the way in terms of diversity leadership. Universe collated the data and built a comprehensive targeted map of the best people who were a level ready for succession.

The data was synthesised and presented graphically for all 10 leadership positions across both Australia and NZ as part of the succession plan for this region.  This provided a clear snapshot of the ratios of top talent for each role and geography, highlighting the gender split and total ratios across the total pool of talent, different industries, locations and top companies. Ten profiles were presented for each position including a detailed career history, photo, qualifications, skills, notes aligned to the brief, contact details and checkbox of criteria aligned to the parameters of the search and recommendations.

Result

The final report, including key findings and observations was presented to the board in Asia. The project was commended for providing detailed market intelligence and data insights into the competitor landscape. The data confirmed their position in the market in relation to diversity leadership compared with other companies.  The business was better positioned to manage risk of any unexpected moves in the leadership team. Universe had identified the best female leaders, enabling the company to appoint future senior female leaders to the organisation.