Soraya

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French born Soraya Ramoul is Novo Nordisk’ Global Health Policy director, and despite of a very busy schedule, she kindly accepted to give us a few insightful takeaways from her experience as a woman in a leader position in Denmark as well as her perspective about workplace gender equality.

Soraya, have you noticed differences between France and Denmark in terms of gender equality at work? Well, most of my career has been in Denmark, so it might be difficult for me to compare to France. France has made significant progress towards gender equality in recent decades, but of course, Scandinavian countries are very progressive in terms of career opportunities for women. In my own organization, we have a rather equal distribution of men and women, especially at line managerial levels. It is thus possible to reconcile career and family life with adequate support systems. But when it comes to top management, it is another story - even if things are moving on, they move slowly.

Why is it so do you think? It is a complex and very interesting question, and there is no easy answer.. I think that there are multiple factors explaining why you find very few women in top management positions.

First of all, being in a top management position demands huge sacrifices in terms of social and family life. I am not sure that women considering those positions are willing to fully compromise with their family life. Furthermore, women maybe have a tendency to want to keep control and excel - in all levels. They want to be that super leader, as well as the perfect wife or girlfriend, and of course the super mum. And well, it is not going to happen - unless you are ready to let go. You won´t be excelling at all levels. I do not know any men or women being capable of that. You have to be realistic. So, no, you won´t be the one picking up at 4pm. You probably will not be able to participate as much as you would like to in many events in your family´s life, etc. The good thing today is that more and more fathers play an active role, but it still demands that you let them do that. And it


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