APG is different. It has two women and a “diversity officer” (a man) on the 5-member supervisory board and it adjusted the wage gap last summer. “This is a priority for us. We are way ahead of the commercial world.”
Francine, member of the supervisory board, who is responsible for the business component of Participant and Employer Services, and who was recently presented as a commissioner by engineering firm Royal Haskoning, also talks about her career step, from Marktplaats, Miss Etam and Xenos to APG, about diversity and about the sexist and inappropriate comments she still has to deal with inside and outside of the board rooms, in her interview with NRC.
And while talking about the usefulness of a women’s quota for top positions, she also overturns the counter argument that women that get to the top due to a quota are seen as token women. “That’s just nonsense. Then you’re missing the essence of why you would temporarily employ such a measure - and it must be temporary; 8 years, or, for example, two terms. It is to create an equal playing field and to break through an old pattern, by increasing opportunities for a group that is currently being insufficiently promoted and is under-represented in the top. We really must get rid of the idea of the token women.”
“My motto is: focus your energy on what you can change, how you can make an impact. Saying you don’t like something doesn’t count.”
Read the entire Dutch interview with Francine van Dierendonck in the NRC here.