Fair Start, a campaign by Gatefield, has urged private and public organisations to design systems that support and sustain women in leadership and executive roles in the workplace.
The campaign flagged off on Africa Women’s Day 2025, in Lagos, comes after the release of data from the ‘2025 McKinsey Women In The Workplace’ report, which indicates that only 1 in 3 entry-level roles in Nigeria’s formal private sector is held by a woman.
The report further noted that while 77 per cent of CEOs supposedly prioritise gender equity, only 33 per cent of organisations track promotion data by gender. Meanwhile, the few women who make it to executive positions have a 30 per cent chance of being ousted within a year, owing to a lack of support and rigid workplace policies.
To entrench gender equity in the formal sector workplace, the Fair Start Campaign, dubbed #LevelTheField online, urges both private and public organisations not solely to establish policies but intentionally design systems in their workplaces to ensure the hiring of more women, their mentorship, and sustenance in executive roles.
They also urged the creation of systems that track gender-disaggregated data on hirings, promotions, and exits and act on the findings, the designing of inclusive workplaces with caregiver-friendly and flexible policies, and the linkage of gender equity to performance reviews and executive Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
“We created Fair Start to show what is possible when equity is embedded by design, not added as an afterthought. This is an invitation to employers to lead boldly, measure what matters, and unlock the full value of talent,” said Narrative Practice Lead at Gatefield, Christina Akintoye.
For KickOff Africa Partner, Fola Olatunji-David, “women aren’t just missing at the top, they are being filtered out before they even get the chance.”
Thus, “we need to build systems that track gender data from entry level to executive roles. Policies alone do not level the field. Systems do,” said Nigeria Health Watch Managing Director, Vivianne Ihekweazu.
Boosting Ihekweazu’s point, Mayowa Kuyoro, partner at McKinsey & Company Nigeria, urged the Nigerian corporate industry and spaces to “build systems that include rather than exclude women.”
Fair Start #LevelTheField campaign was kicked off by Gatefield, a public strategy group driving positive change through advocacy and strategic community with a women’s cycling exercise in Lagos, and called on employers in Nigeria’s corporate capital to make public commitments, alongside making validator call-out videos and pledge signing via its website.
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