Parexel: Leveraging gender partnership to advance women in leadership

In 2014, Parexel leadership realized that despite having healthy representation of women at the manager-and-below level, women were not progressing from the senior director to vice president level at the pace they would like. One of the actions the company took in response was to hire its first Global Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Aida Sabo. Under Ms. Sabo’s leadership, the company launched an initiative aimed at increasing its representation of women leaders at the highest levels by building a culture of inclusion from the top down.

Oversight of Parexel’s Women in Leadership initiative sits with the company’s Diversity Executive Committee (DEC), which includes several members of the Parexel Executive Leadership Team and the DEI department. This group meets quarterly to review goals, activities, and leadership representation data. Information from the DEC is funneled down to company-wide committees, which prioritize activities based on the organization’s strategic goals. These company-wide committees are sponsored by designated leaders and cover a range of subject matters, functions, and regions to address the unique needs of each.