Do Women Need to Play Golf in Order to Lead Major Programmes? With Corail Bourrelier Fabiani | Saïd Business School, University of Oxford | S1 EP 9

Do women still need to get on the course to progress their careers in major programmes? Does The Boys Club still exist in 2023? Inclusivity and ambition—how are they connected? Navigating Major Programmes podcast co-host, Corail Bourrelier Fabiani, shares her Oxford Saïd Business School dissertation’s insightful findings in this week’s episode. Riccardo and Corail take a deep dive into equality, diversity and inclusion in the infrastructure industry uncovering the taboo topics that have been avoided for decades.

“In the research, you can see that women's interests are not really accommodated in major urban transport infrastructure programs,” says Corail. “And there is a big gender data gap, which is kind of reinforcing inequalities in this space. In my opinion, all this is reinforced by the fact that we don't have enough women at the top. So I thought, how are we changing this?”

Corail, the accomplished programme manager behind projects such as the Paddington Square Public Art Programme and the Shard Quarter Public Art Programme in London, concludes the discussion with four steps to solve this complex, systemic issue.

Key Takeaways:

• The seven gender-related challenges in major programmes and how to solve them.
• How language labels leaders as men and how applications can encourage the women talent pool to apply.
• How to alter networking and affinity bias in order to better support women in infrastructure and why women-designed networks with male allies are so vital.
• The scarcity mindset and what happens to women at the top.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community:

• Riccardo Cosentino on LinkedIn
• Corail Bourrelier Fabiani on LinkedIn

Transcript:

Riccardo Cosentino 00:05

You're listening to Navigating Major Programmes, the podcast that aims to elevate the conversations happening in the infrastructure industry and inspire you to have a more efficient approach within it. I'm your host, Riccardo Cosentino brings over 20 years of major product management experience. Most recently, I graduated from Oxford University's day business school, which shook my belief when it comes to navigating major problems. Now it's time to shake yours. Join me in each episode, as I press the industry experts about the complexity of major program management, emerging digital trends and the critical leadership required to approach these multibillion dollar projects. Let's see where the conversation takes us. Hi, welcome back to another episode of navigating major programs. Today I'm here with a recurring guest and co-host of this podcast.

Corail 01:03

I am with Corail

Riccardo Cosentino 01:04

l, how're you doing?

Corail 01:06

I am doing great. Thank you, Riccardo,

Riccardo Cosentino 01:08

Thank you for joining us again. Really glad that you're here today. Today, we're gonna talk about your dissertation from your master's degree at Oxford. If I remember correctly, you did a dissertation titled, "do women need to play golf in order to lead measure programs?" really catchy title? But maybe you can tell us a bit more why you picked that dissertation? And what dissertation was all about?

Corail 01:39

Yeah, sure. Yeah. So yeah, this title was kind of a humorous reference to an HBR article, which said that basically, many women in male dominated industries feel compelled to play golf to access to the top leadership network. And my research was about women's network, and how can those women network help change the culture of major program, which are notoriously male dominated environments? And I thought it was funny that some women would think like, Okay, I'm gonna play golf, so make the most important contact, and I was like, okay, is this still happening? Do we still need to go on, on the course to get this important contact. So I did this research as part of our MSc in major program management at the Said business school. And it was really like, out of had the like, how out of an impulse after an event that happened during a master's degree. And I don't know if you remember that. But basically, each year, the program gets the opportunity to do a debate at the famous Oxford Union. And during our cohort, we have Ella a brilliant change manager, men's leader, who proposed the motion for that debate, which was around the importance of gender diversity in major p...