Simmons MBA Adds International Gender Diversity Expert to Faculty
The Simmons College School of Management has named Susan Vinnicombe, OBE, Ph.D., the Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Chair for Women and Leadership. Vinnicombe is a leading expert on corporate gender diversity who has served as a consultant for companies and organizations in over twenty countries on attracting, developing, and retaining women executives.
Vinnicombe is an elected Fellow of the British Academy of Management and is currently the director of Cranfield University’s International Center for Women Leaders in England. The Center produces the Female Financial Times-Stock Exchange Report, the main research resource on women directors in the United Kingdom and the benchmark for measuring female directors. Vinnicombe is also the founder of the Women in the City Awards, and she serves as chair of the judges for the awards. She also serves as Vice Patron for Working Families, a charity that helps working parents and their employers develop a balance between work and familial responsibilities. In 2005, Vinnicombe received the Order of the British Empire, one of the highest honors in the United Kingdom, for Services to Diversity for the Queens New Year’s Honours List.
While at Simmons, Vinnicombe will develop research through the Simmons College Center for Gender in Organizations, and assist with the design of creative programming on the topic of corporate board gender diversity. She will study why there aren’t more women being promoted to corporate boards in the United States.
Simmons is the first and only business school program intended specifically for women (although men are welcome to apply). In its 2013 guidebook to the best business schools, The Princeton Review just ranked Simmons School of Management the #1 MBA program providing the “Greatest Opportunity for Women”. The appointment of Vinnicombe is Simmon’s latest measure talign with their aim of preparing women for positions of power and leadership.
