Female Executive Spotlight: Expedia’s Ariane Gorin on Female Leadership and the Gender Pay Gap

Ariane Gorin is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Expedia Affiliate Network, and a member of the leadership team of Expedia Inc. Here, she shares her incredibly valuable leadership advice and personal take on the gender pay gap and how to negotiate pay. Why There is a Lack of Female Representation in Senior Positions There are two major factors contributing to the lack of female representation in senior positions. First, what Sheryl Sandberg refers to about women not “Leaning In” – being confident in asking for what they want and speaking up. Second, what Anne Marie Slaughter refers to in Unfinished Business as the need for a more flexible workplace and openness to the idea of a non-linear career path - helping women off-and on-ramp and manage flexibility at times when they need to or choose to be care-takers. I’ve also observed that women can be less resilient than men when they face set-backs at work, taking failures more personally or over-estimating the impact of a failure. This can lead to a cycle of taking fewer risks and therefore having fewer opportunities to advance. I’ve personally struggled to fight the voice in my head that beats myself up when I or my team fail, and I’ve trained myself to see these failures as learning experiences that are only possible by setting stretch goals. Finally, I think all too often women get feedback that to be successful in the workplace they have to change their style, and they decide that the cost of trying to be someone they aren’t just isn’t worth the energy. A recent Harvard Business Review study shows that women tend to get more development feedback about their communication style than men, whereas men receive more development feedback about technical skills. A few years ago I was told that I needed to be more aggressive if I wanted to be taken seriously as a sales leader. I tried changing my style and it backfired – I went home every night exhausted and feeling out-of-sync with myself because I was trying to be someone I am not. Ever since I’ve stuck with my natural style and have sought out environments that enable me to embrace it. How to Increase the Proportion of Female Executive Leaders The first thing is to have more role models who speak openly about how they make it work as a senior female executive so that younger women see that it is possible. I’ve had a number of women come to me over the last few years asking for advice about applying for new roles while they are pregnant - they wouldn’t have approached men for advice, but were comfortable coming to me because of my experience of changing jobs while pregnant or returning from maternity leave. Also, a female VP in my team has two children under 5 years old, a husband with a career, and she was promoted to her current role when she returned from maternity leave. She works one day per week from home and builds in the flexibility she needs. It is so important that she tell her story to women who are questioning whether they can continue to accelerate professionally even when starting a family. By telling our stories – about our self-doubts, insecurities, challenges and successes – we can help younger women to not feel alone in their journeys as they make important career choices. The second thing is for women to build support networks so that when they do face low moments they’re able to be resilient and continue to push forward. I love the concept of a “posse” – a small circle of people at work who I trust completely, who know me well and only want the best for me, who I can confide in when I am down or need advice, who will be honest with me as I work through tough problems, and who just make work fun even in difficult times. In addition to a posse, having a sponsor at a senior level in an organization can help a leader identify future roles or important projects that she can contribute to, in the process helping her build her network. Third, I believe that companies should set public goals to have more women in leadership positions. I am lucky enough to work at a company that has done just that. At Expedia we’ve been thoughtful in our approach to growing and retaining a diverse set of leaders. We’ve implemented strong family-centric benefits programs and flexible working environments, have implemented inclusive hiring practices and have put in place training on topics like micro-inequities. Ultimately, every business needs to decide if they value inclusion enough to prioritize women in leadership. At Expedia, inclusion is important to our business because we feel having diverse voices leads to a more creative workplace, and we believe that different cultures and opinions represented across our employee population are important to service our equally diverse customer base. We recently released data showing that 33.3% of our leadership roles are held by women, where leadership is defined as executive-, senior- and manager-level positions. Overall, 52 percent of Expedia, Inc. employees worldwide are women, and in 2015, 32 percent of all leadership hires were women compared with 29 percent in 2014. Pay Parity at Expedia In the UK, the gender pay gap for full time workers is 13.9%. The Fawcett Society cites four reasons driving the gap: discrimination, unequal caring responsibilities, a divided labour market and men being in the most senior roles. Gender pay disparity can happen even when people have the best intentions as it may be based on hidden biases, so it is not enough just to talk about it. We have to proactively look at gender pay equality across our organizations and take steps to address it. In my organization of 350 people, at annual review time when we review salaries and bonuses, my HR partner and I look at the proposals for bonus and salary increases and cut the data in many different ways, including by gender, to ensure that there isn’t an unconscious bias based on gender. In addition to top-down verifications of decisions, we can make the data public. At Expedia, we recently released data about pay parity that revealed that pay at our company is equal between men and women in similar roles and locations. My Personal Experience With Gender Pay Inequality I haven’t personally discovered that a male co-worker with the same title and responsibility was paid more than me, though given the statistics on gender salary inequality this is probably more my never having discovered it rather than it never being the case. I have, though, not raised my hand for a promotion as I thought I “wasn’t quite ready yet” and “needed another year to have the experience it took to do the new role well” – only to find that a male colleague with similar experience to mine applied for the role and got it. I took about a year to digest the experience, and since then have vowed to myself never again to repeat the same mistake. My Advice on How to Negotiate Prepare, prepare, prepare: research the salary levels within and outside of your company. Be articulate about your key accomplishments and ongoing projects which are delivering value to your company. Be positive and confident, stay factual and don’t make it personal.