Math can help girls succeed in business world

PHILADELPHIA — Kudos to the STEM movement (science, technology, engineering and math) for building girls’ interests in science, engineering and technology, says Joyce Russell, dean of Villanova University’s nationally ranked business school.

But what about the Mfor-math part?

The answer matters, Russell said, especially if there’s any real push to get more women into the ranks of chief executive. “I have this whole theory on if we’re going to really impact society at the CEO level, we’ve got to get women in finance, because that’s the easiest route to becoming a CEO.”

But, as she points out, the field of finance is “very male-dominated. When you look at business schools, most finance students are men. If I could make change, it would go back to 5-year-olds. How do we get girls excited about math? If you look at the STEM movement, they’ve done a fabulous job on enticing girls to get into STEM. They’re doing great, and more power to them, because that helps us because most of the people in STEM will, eventually, go into business. That’s good for us. But, when you think about high school, and elementary, middle school, they teach hardly anything about business. Right?”

They don’t know all that exists.

Russell: If they all came to Villanova, fabulous. But, if they don’t, but they go into business, I’m happy, too, because we’ve made an impact on society. So, we’ve just got to go way back into the system and get girls excited about business. We’re partnering with Girl Scouts. We’re partnering with all-girl schools. We’re trying to do more to get girls excited about what the careers are in business, and what could you do. Even if you go into arts and sciences, you’re going to need business skills.

How do you get kids generally, little girls, specifically, excited about business?

Russell: One of the things that’s easy for them to understand is entrepreneurship. We just partnered with an all-girls school, Agnes Irwin (a private college-prep school outside Philadelphia) . ...

Ninth to 12th graders have a two-week project. Some of them travel to other parts of the world, and they do all kinds of things. I said, “Why don’t you do a business thing?” So, we partnered with them. They had about 20 ninth graders. We worked in teams to develop projects. This was on entrepreneurship, a twoweek program. There were a couple of people who taught them how to do a pitch for entrepreneurship, taught them how to do communications, like communication skills, taught them about developing products, what you need to do. Then myself and some of our successful undergrad women entrepreneurs went and we were “Shark Tank” when they did their pitches. It was super fun. Oh, my gosh, they came up with fabulous ideas.

Writing about CEOs, I ask a lot of female execs about high heels — whether they think they are a required part of the dress code. It’s mixed. Some say yes, many say, “Of course not.” But then, they also all say they wear them.

Russell: One thing I want to say about this, which is kind of funny: I was meeting with this gal who’s a CFO in finance, and I always say, “Gosh, I need you to come back in the classroom and talk to, especially, the younger women.” Because if you look at women students, undergrads, they like to see somebody ... that they can relate to and they can say, “Could I do that job and could I look like you?”

Then, they do look at them, and they look to see how they’re dressed, and they always look at the shoes.