Julia Wada, group vice president for Toyota Financial Services, says sponsors and mentors throughout her career taught her that female leaders were a source of strength for an organization, and she has been paying the support forward by mentoring others and speaking up when she witnesses unconscious bias or microaggressions in the workplace. "I've seen a real shift from a 'you're on your own' culture to women supporting other women and more recently male allyship as well," she says, adding that "broader recognition of the role we all play to lift up women is the key to scaling."

Organizations such as New York Women in Communications and Neutrogena are focused on supporting women and their careers as the pandemic has led 2.3 million women to leave their jobs, according to the National Women's Law Center. New York Women in Communications has partnered with Meredith Corp., Bloomberg, and Foote, Cone & Belding to study the factors that have affected working women in the pandemic, while Neutrogena, along with IFundWomen, is starting a grant program.

Humble leaders ask open-ended questions such as "What do you need from me?" and "How can we come together on this?" to elicit ideas and solutions from their team, writes former CEO Sabrina Horn. This approach isn't easy, as many CEOs and executives struggle to be vulnerable and prefer a veneer of all-knowing.

Firms that recruit and retain female and next-generation talent will be better prepared for the wealth transfer that will happen over the next two decades, writes Matt Granski of Miracle Mile Advisors. Granski recommends "identifying next-gen advisors with great potential and surrounding them with extensive tools, resources and support."

Twenty-five Black women and 24 Black men are among the 1,548 US-based executives, senior officials and managers at Goldman Sachs, per a report from the bank, and 74 Asian women and 160 Asian men are executives. "There's still a long road ahead, but I will continue to make this effort a personal priority," CEO David Solomon wrote in the report.

Venture capital group Fearless Fund, which invests in businesses started by women of color, will receive millions of dollars from such investors as Mastercard, Bank of America, Costco and PayPal. Less than 1% of venture capital funding went to Black and Latino female founders in 2020, according to a report.

Procter & Gamble's feminine care brand Tampax is sponsoring its first-ever gaming competition Friday on the KittyPlays Twitch channel along with an all-female panel discussion of challenges facing women in the male-dominated world of e-sports. "I love that a brand like Tampax has stepped up to support and validate female gamers by encouraging conversations about our experiences and bodies," said panel moderator Kristen Michaela, also known as KittyPlays.

Although 80% of working parents think employers have given them what they need during the pandemic, the number drops for female employees, as well as Latino parents and Black parents, according to the seventh annual Bright Horizons Modern Family Index. The majority of parents who began working remotely at the start of the pandemic want to continue doing so, the report shows.