The FT’s female leadership sets industry standard

At the Financial Times in 2016, women made up 34 percent of its global management group; now that’s 45 percent, reports Joshua Benton of Press Gazette.

Benton reports, “The FT requires that the shortlists for all job openings be 50/50 male/female ‘to ensure inclusive recruitment practices.’ 51 percent of the paper’s managers are women.

“The reason I’m bringing this all up is that Khalaf just announced that Janine Gibson, the former Guardian and BuzzFeed editor, has been named the FT’s head of digital platforms and projects. She also promoted Renée Kaplan to head of digital editorial development. Terrific choices both, and only the latest sign of the progress that’s been made in promoting women at the FT.

“Again, the FT’s not perfect, and it still has a ways to go on issues including its gender pay gap. But it’s worth highlighting here precisely because it’s not the first newspaper you’d expect to be leading the way on gender representation. They’ve shown that, if an organization puts its mind to it, it can get a lot closer to equal representation in a short period of time. And that it’s the FT — one of the very smartest news publishers when it comes to digital innovation and revenue — should be a sign that it’s a good move for the business as well.”

Read more here.