Sowon Kim Crettex

The Covid-19 crisis has thrown SMEs, which account for 99% of companies in Switzerland, into a state of emergency. In response, the Swiss government released a Covid-19 Credit of CHF 20 billion for SMEs: up to CHF 500,000 per company with 0% interest rate.

June 14, 2019, the second Grève de la femme (women's strike) in Swiss history took place after the first 28 years ago. Over half a million women took to the streets in protest of gender inequality. Unfortunately, the world today still shows a large gap in the appreciation of both genders in the business world and beyond. Currently, 35.3% of entrepreneurs are women (FSO, 2016) and 31% of SMEs are led by women (USAM, 2017) in Switzerland.

Although more than 60 percent of EHL's current students are female, reaching the C-suite is still a problem, as only 17 percent of the school's alumni occupying senior executive roles are women. Earlier this year EHL launched its Women in Leadership (WIL) initiative, with the aim of promoting leadership policies to foster diverse and balanced work environments in the hospitality industry. In mid-November, we staged the school's first WIL workshop aimed at professional confidence building.