Anyone here from PwC who is so disappointed right now?

[TeamLauraOrHemione]

As the title says... I am so so sad and disappointed that with the chance to be the first big 4 firm to appoint a female senior partner, we have appointed yet another white man. I'm sure Marco will do a fine job, but talk about emphasising that as a firm we are super good at talking the talk, but awful at walking the walk.

Anyway all official channels are full of the usual sycophants so was hoping there might be someone here who feels like me

Link for non PwC people who have no idea what I'm on about: www.ft.com/content/0c86798f-4eae-4819-8970-40f7d82dc81d

Paywall

But yeah I remember reading all the blurb from the milkround firms, then watched the lads get jobs whilst I didn't even get interviews and I had significantly better results...seems not a lot changes at any level.

I was at PwC years ago and it was massively sexist then. I had a massive strop when the women's network got an email inviting us to take clients and their kids to a female friendly event - Disney on ice! Pointed out it was a family friendly not female. Gah. I even contacted partner on board responsible for diversity.. he didn't see issue.

Anyway, they talked the talk but absolutely no walking of it. And from what I hear no change.

I know absolutely nothing about the PwC process but yes, I 100% agree. It’s so relentless. The default is always the bloody man.

It's just so sad that with two excellent female candidates we've gone with the standard default position.

Probably not helped by the fact 25% of the vote is made up from Middle East partners, hardly known for their diversity and appreciation of women in business. I really hope the press pick up on this.

I'm not PwC but another Big4 and this doesn't surprise me at all. In this world, it's all about who you know and decisions are made based on relationships, not merit. Often in my role I come across Partners taking shortcuts that would end up with more junior team members sacked if they did the same... But they have the leaderships ear so no one cares 🙄

Not a PWC employee but have read about this today.

Honestly I am less bothered about who they chose for the role (I believe it probably was on ability to deliver whatever it is they wanted) …

… and more bothered than in 2024 it’s still ‘news’ that women were even shortlisted for the role.

I still regularly attend events with 95%+ men and the women often chat to each other about the general absence of women. It’s frustrating.

IMO the real issue here is the expectations of senior executives in these roles (ie it being prioritised above everything else, the constant travel etc), and how many talented women disappear when they have children as they can’t make it work.

i didn’t see a SINGLE comment in the press, not even from feminist columnists, when M&S appointed a female “co-head”, who reported to the other (male) cohead… so I am not holding my breath for the media on this one.

I've been working with PwC recently and hadn't noticed until you said this that of the team of 7 people I've dealt with so far, only one is a woman. It is the most senior member of the team which is a plus but I'd not really clocked it til you said this.

When I used to work in a Big 4 company, our office had more managers called Joe than female managers. (And no, there were no female managers called Jo!)

Not PwC but worked many years at a Fortune Global 500 professional services company (three times the size of PwC). They've had a woman CEO since 2019, and many women in senior leadership roles. Shame PwC is still so behind with appointing women to leadership.

I don't think PWC ever had the best reputation out of the Big 4 for diversity. Last decade I would have said EY. So, having asked friends from diverse categories what they thought, and received very positive feedback, decided to apply for their senior returners programme. Process dragged on, and on, all over the summer. Bearing in mind that probably 90-95% of the hopeful returners were women returning to professional careers after family time who would need to sort childcare for nursery/primary school for a Sept start.

I ended up with an interview on their final closing day (31st Aug) but the decision makers weren't available, so HR in all "sincerity" suggested I re-apply the following year. I explained I already had an offer from an investment bank and needed to return to work as soon as. They were astonished that I would take such a view. I then looked at who had recommended me EY. Middle to senior management - gay men without children. The EY recruitment brochure described many types of individual wanting flexible work patterns but I really don't think they wanted females with young children. I'm ex-KPMG - both audit and consulting. The consulting partners were disgustingly misogynist. So I am not surprised by these decisions, even now.

Oh I hadn't seen this. I was hoping for Hermione - although that's probably mainly because I'm in audit so I'm just more familiar with her.

I will say that although day to day I've never experienced any sexism at PWC, there's a noticeable sex gap at partner level in my business unit.

I left EY after having my first because I was told in not so many words that I wouldn’t promote or have an enjoyable experience if I went part time after mat leave. And they’re supposed to be one of the better big 4 for diversity!

So this sadly doesn’t really surprise me at all.

Very sad here!

The first thing a fellow female colleague said was about the Middle East. I hope this gets picked up but I doubt it.

Kevin Ellis was already very publicly talking about needing to return to the office to get promoted I can't imagine Marco will be any different.

All talk when it comes to diversity

When you know only 10 companies in the FTSE 100 have women CEOs, things like this never come as a surprise... I'm lucky enough to work for one of them and boy, does she get a lot of shit for sticking her head above the parapet and saying it is not acceptable!

Sanfranbear is that an insurance business - very inspirational woman if so.
i work for a big 4 and diversity is not a priority. It might be listed as a priority but it isn’t practically. The male partners significantly outnumber female and it’s very much the boys club. One of the partners said to me the other day that a junior team member hasn’t been successful enough because she’s a woman therefore doesn’t speak up enough and I was honestly shocked

Notoironing.. might be 😉 She is a genuine champion for women in business and isn't afraid to point out unpalatable truths about the level of sexism in the city. Sadly, doesn't sound like anything is going to change anytime soon!

I was shocked to read a partner hiring proposal at a big law firm, not that long ago, that, when listing why the senior associates could not be promoted (all women) actually referred to a lack of "gravitas". I honestly thought that even if you THINK these things, everyone knows it's not ok to say it. Or put it in writing.

It's truly frustrating.

I have never felt that being female or part time has held me back, and in my own team there are some great female leaders.

It's just that Laura and Hemione were such excellent candidates that it feels like a massive missed opportunity. The press have picked up on it to a certain extent (the Times and Telegraph both seem to refer to them choosing the only man, but they are paywalled so can't read the articles in full). But not much about the Middle East connection - fingers crossed someone looks at it.

It's noticeable from LinkedIn etc the lack of female partners saying congratulations. I think it's going to be a challenge working out how to address this. Although standard position I guess is to just ignore and hope it goes away.

I have tried to do a gift link but not sure if it has worked.

In case it hasn't, there's just one quote from someone who isn't Amrito himself. Please sit down before reading it becuase it might make you cry:

"“I’m sure there’ll be some fuss made about the fact that he’s a bloke when the other three [candidates] were women,” one insider said, “but [Marco] was the favourite. He’s a geezer — chatty, charismatic, bright. He’s not posh, like you see with some of these business leaders.”

Honestly, it's so depressing. Men will do ANYTHING to justify avoiding having a female boss. It' slike the only time rich, white guys are willing to hire someone who doesn't look exactly like them is if the other candidate is a woman.

On plus side, it might be a "challenging" time (later in the story) for PwC but as a rule, women only get voted in when the ship is sinking so your job is probably safe OP.

Thanks for sharing Gerbils. You're right, it doesn't really cheer me up very much. Both Laura and Hemione are chatty, charismatic and bright too, plus such fab role models for working mothers - Hemione has given interviews about how she was (once) part time.

I think that one of the worst things is knowing that there are so many people (mainly men) thinking the same as the quote in the article. I don't think many white men are just quite aware of the advantages that brings to you.

Different company, but still a large one - Had a man as their woman of the year

Here's a sharetoken for the Times article so that anyone can read it:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2a976b66-405f-46a1-a7f7-3fc83315e5fa?shareToken=6cb1617dfe11d139acba648e005c2b83

Yeah, I nearly crashed the car I was laughing so hard when DS told me, in all seriousness, the other day that because me and DH grew up in another country where objectively speaking we had all the advantages you could ever want, I didn't understand what it was like to be him without "any privilege at all".

He's a white, English speaking teenager in Surrey with two highly educated parents who are actively involved and able to advocate strongly on his behalf, a high standard of living and plenty of opportunities to do/see/experience new places, new things etc.

I think I can safely say he won't be making that ridiculous statement again any time soon!