Women Into Leadership (WIL) is a program designed to support Crowe Horwath LLP’s commitment to retaining, developing, and advancing women leaders within our firm. WIL is not a quota system, but rather an attempt to create more diversity, value, and thought leadership while developing role models and mentors. Through mentoring programs, career development initiatives, and organizational advocacy, WIL seeks to identify and remove the unintended barriers that may prevent some women from reaching leadership positions.
While primarily focused on assisting women leaders, WIL has become a catalyst for other programs that focus on the concept of mutualism, which is the collaboration of differences that allow us to bring greater value to our profession. Retaining, developing, and advancing Crowe’s women leaders is fundamental to Crowe’s future success, and also furthers Crowe’s understanding of the needs of our people, clients, and communities.
- Career sponsors. Every woman in WIL has a career sponsor who provides advocacy, support, and guidance in aiding the individual’s career and personal development. Women in the program work with their career sponsors to develop career plans including goals and the processes and success measurements for reaching these goals. Successfully completing these targeted goals helps increase the impact of women at Crowe serving in significant leadership roles.
WIL career sponsors participate in training to help raise awareness of issues that impact women, provide participants with ideas for motivating people, and offer skill development for coaching female leaders.
- Peer interest groups. Based on WIL participant feedback, peer interest groups were developed in 2006 as informal networks for women leaders. Organized by special life and career needs, peer interest groups have been established at Crowe for working mothers, experienced hires, individuals who are caring for aging parents, people who experience extensive travel, and those managing flexible work arrangements – just to name a few. Peer interest groups hold regular meetings in which participants share their success strategies and have opportunities to learn from external resources.
- Forums. Since the inception of WIL in August 2002, Crowe has sponsored annual forums. Each forum has been designed for WIL participants to network with each other, connect with other Crowe leaders, and learn from one another’s experiences. Forums also provide exposure to outside speakers and internal presenters who share their knowledge through presentations and panel discussions. These sessions offer practical information that can be directly applied to work situations.
WIL-initiated Sponsored Events (WISE)
Conducted by WIL participants in local Crowe offices, WISE programs are designed to share WIL goals, expand knowledge, and offer networking opportunities to all personnel.
Regional Meetings
Periodically, regional meetings are held to provide WIL participants greater exposure to others in the WIL network, share information on relevant topics, and offer a venue for building relationships.
