International Women's Day 2019: How corporate America is clearing a path to the c-suite

Today is International Women’s Day -- a day to celebrate the achievements of women across the world from social and economic strides to cultural and political movements. And according to one female-led company, there’s a huge push to make sure women get their place in executive’s offices.

“There’s a lot of discussions about how there aren’t enough women,” said Accenture North America CEO Julie Sweet to Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Friday. “But at the same time, what we’re seeing is that there’s more women—there’s more focus on getting women into the c-suite than ever before.  There’s a huge commitment.”

According to Sweet, the global management consulting and professional services firm employs 200 thousand woman around the globe and is “extraordinarily focused” not only on having women in the workforce, but also providing them with the development tools they need to advance.

Sweet also said research conducted by Accenture showed that companies that bring the culture of equality into the workplace had more innovative employees.

“Companies that have a robust culture of equality where men and women are advancing, also have a much higher innovation mindset among their employees, which is the willingness and ability to innovate.  It’s 5 times higher in companies with a robust culture of equality,” she said.

However, in Sweets opinion, companies still aren’t doing enough.

“They need to collect data, they need to have plans, they need to treat it like a business priority, which is why this research, this year is so important,” she said. “Because innovation is a top priority for the C-Suite, so it moves the conversation from creating a culture of equality because it’s the right thing to do, to creating a culture of equality because to achieve continuous innovation, which is core to success, you need to have a culture of equality.”