Dianna K. Descovich

Creativity is my superpower. I can take disparate elements and make a coherent whole out of them, and thus bring about new value. For as long as I can remember, I have been sensitive to injustice, especially towards those who diverge from the norm. I do not accept the status quo but keep trying to find a way to make the seemingly impossible possible. Ever starting from scratch and with tangible results that follow. This drive to create something new has guided me through a corporate career in the pharmaceutical industry and entrepreneurship, my work in professional associations, and the non-profit sector. When I experienced discrimination due to being a woman and a mother, it motivated me to create an initiative that helps women in career development along with motherhood. The MAMFORCE I created, is the total of all my knowledge, skills, and experience, from psychology and business I had studied, to market research, communications, marketing, and corporate social responsibility I had been professionally engaged with. My actions are guided by the glocal principle – global reach with solid local engagement. In line with that, I have managed to impact numerous countries, although my present residence is Croatia.

How did IE help you get to where you are today?

IE provided an excellent fund of knowledge that gave me the confidence to enter new impact domains. I mastered practical tools for managing my entrepreneurial project at that time, which encouraged me to develop the business further and spearhead new initiatives. During the International Executive MBA programme, we were guided to resolve numerous challenges in a very inspiring international context, whereby we all brought forward various perspectives, experiences, and cultural backgrounds. IE's professors and associates motivated us to look for new, never before seen solutions with charm, welcome informality, and creativity that characterizes the Spanish culture. Moreover, I am now convinced that IE was, in fact, responsible for liberating the spark of creativity that I carry inside and that I had not dared express fully beforehand. Also, the MAMFORCE I created was influenced by the diversity of the IE environment and the broad perspective I adopted there.

How are you impacting the lives of women?

I’m on a mission to change the paradigm that women should change themselves to fit into the traditional way of doing business to the new paradigm that we have to change the system to allow women to flourish. I developed the business certification that facilitates organizational design and culture change with an evidence-based approach. Its implementation opens a path to professional development for career-oriented women for whom motherhood often accompanies additional invisible barriers. Inclusive corporate culture enables women’s self-realization in both career and family roles. Women in MAMFORCE-certified organizations can benefit from a level playing field. The impact I made is visible in over 50 certified companies that have developed an inclusive organizational culture that suits the needs of more than 40.000 employees: women, mothers, and parents having equitable opportunities in their different life stages. In those organizations, women and men can work in flexible work arrangements, and selection and promotion procedures are gender aware, resulting in gender balance across the pipeline.

In your opinion, what institutional or societal changes need to be made to keep women at the forefront of business and society?

We must reduce gender stereotypes from an early age. Research shows that children already at age five think boys are better at math, which is not supported by facts. Expectations of gender roles develop from childhood throughout life, resulting in motherhood as the lens through which women predominantly define their life choices despite education and career aspirations. Traditional gender roles encourage women to take on caring responsibilities and to integrate care around work. Women are expected to participate in the workforce and, in most cases, also to shoulder the primary responsibility for unpaid domestic work. This work is undervalued, making the work-life balance difficult to achieve, perpetuating labour market inequalities based on gender. Equal division of childcare between parents and encouraging fathers to take parental and paternity leave is necessary for societal change. Only after both parents take an equal share of childcare-related obligations will we prevent stereotypical expectations of gender roles and invisible barriers for women in the workplace. Institutional incentives through legislation are necessary, but in parallel, a culture change is needed. That motivated me to create the DADFORCE® standard that confirms a responsible organizational support policy for working fathers, helping them strengthen their parental role. It is an inventory of father-friendly workplace practices which encourage equity for working parents, especially regarding a positive outlook towards parental and paternity leave, that still tend to be stigmatized.