Olena Zelenska. First Lady of Ukraine.
(Abu Dhabi) – An historic gathering of women took place in Abu Dhabi this month and MCG President Duby McDowell was honored to attend, courtesy of our longtime partner and friend Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC. Mika chaired the Forbes 30/50 Summit which coincided with International Women’s Day.
Forbes produced the event and drew on the talent and leadership of women named in recent years to the magazine’s “30 Under 30” and “50 Over 50” lists.
Mika led a panel discussion that included women representing many “firsts”: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Billie Jean King, and Olena Zelenska, the First Lady of Ukraine.
In opening remarks, Secretary Clinton laid out a stark reality, that according to recent figures from the United Nations, it will take women in most countries another 250 years to reach pay equity. This is a statistic the women on stage and those attending the summit cannot accept.
Clinton and King both said progress on pay equity has been stalled over the last two decades and King urged young women in particular to use their leadership opportunities to make a difference.
King is known as the leader who made a difference by succeeding in making tennis the first professional sport to grant equal prize money to both men and women players. She told the audience that everyone is “an influencer” and anyone is in a position to make a difference on a variety of issues if you are willing to use your voice and your power.
First Lady Zelenska said “equality is a normal thing” and is not something for which we should need to fight. In her closing comments she added that women need to fight for their rights, but men also need to fight for gender equality.
The Forbes 30/50 Summit, centered around International Women’s Day, necessarily confronted issues of diversity, equity and inclusion common to today’s workplace.
King urged the audience to “talk to people who don’t look like you. Talk to people who don’t think like you. It is the only way to learn and make a difference.” She closed by saying, “We don’t understand inclusion until we are excluded.”
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If you would like to watch the entire panel discussion you can follow this link: International Women’s Day, Mika Brzezinski panel, Forbes 30/50 Summit.