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In many ways, the two of us are like real-life versions of Mattel’s Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) Barbie. We represent two of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft and Google, and are leading programs that support private sector action in solving the climate crisis while helping drive the business. A few months ago, in a nod to the eco-leadership line of Barbies that Mattel launched in partnership with long-time conservationist Jane Goodall, one of us (Kate) posted on LinkedIn that in the 1980s, we had Malibu Beach Barbie. Now, it’s Chief Sustainability Officer Barbie–and this can be seen as one measure of progress. Since then, we have been getting myriad questions about our vision for the CSO role and how environmental sustainability is touching every corner of our businesses.
But one of the persistent questions we have received is one that leaves us feeling conflicted, conjuring both a sense of pride but also of concern: What it means to be a “woman leader”–in our industry, in the sustainability space, in the C-suite.
Let us first speak of what makes us proud. From Jane Goodall to Christina Figueres to Greta Thunberg–women and girls have been at the forefront of leadership in combatting the climate crisis and environmental degradation. And we are representative of a growing and amazing peer group of other women sustainability executives. The climate crisis has been heralded by many world leaders as the biggest challenge humankind has ever faced, so it is essential to have both the representation and the brainpower of women around the world driving toward solving this existential issue.
However, as people whose careers have spanned government, private equity, and the tech world, we are also sensitive to how the “feminization” of certain roles or types of work can be used as a way to minimize the importance of the work itself, as well as marginalize the women who are doing it.
Unfortunately, these fears are not unfounded. As Fortune’s Peter Vanham notes in What ‘sustainability’ Barbie tells us about the rise of the woman chief sustainability officer, other senior leadership roles typically occupied by women like chief human resources officer or chief communications officer can sometimes become a career cul-de-sac–whereas leadership roles typically occupied by men often have a clearer and more frequent path to CEO or other executive leadership positions.
The role of women in private equity paints an even bleaker picture. According to a 2022 Axios article, women make up 34% of entry-level investing roles–the seat of power in the PE world–but 57% of non-investing roles. And as the roles become more senior, the gender gap widens–with women comprising only 9% of investment committee members (and only 1% of these are women of color). Inevitably, this also trickles down to the ideas and companies that get funded.
Circling back to what this means in our current roles, it’s important for us and other women in executive positions to be honest about our complex relationship with leadership. Being a woman is part of our identity, and since we still live in a world where persistent gender gaps exist across so many facets of society, we understand the symbolism and the importance of discussing and celebrating women’s leadership.
But it is equally important for us to say, just because I am a woman doing this job, it does not mean that this is “women’s work” in a pejorative sense.
Fortunately, there is also some cause for hope. A recent article in Harvard Business Review, The Evolving Role of Chief Sustainability Officers, notes that in the past few years, as more companies have hired CSOs, the role itself has become more powerful and strategic–something we can attest to in our own companies where sustainability is inextricably connected to the overall purpose and success of our businesses. This means that sustainability isn’t siloed off into a corner, but fully integrated into everything our companies do: the products we create and sell, the tools and technology we build, how we work with and support our customers and partners, what we invest in, what we report on to our shareholders, and how we engage with government policymakers from the local to the global level.
While there is undoubtedly still more work to be done (for example, in increasing the representation of women from different ethnic, racial, or socio-economic backgrounds in our space), we are also seeing more and more examples of CSOs, including women CSOs, rising to the very top leadership positions in their companies.
So indeed, let’s all celebrate this progress, but we also look forward to the day when women’s leadership doesn’t need a special callout because it’s fully normalized within our workplaces and our societies.
Melanie Nakagawa is corporate VP and chief sustainability officer at Microsoft.
Kate Brandt is chief sustainability officer at Google.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
