Suzanne Walsh is the president of Bennett College, a private historically black liberal arts college for women in Greensboro, North Carolina. She was most recently deputy director of postsecondary success for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading and developing a team and a portfolio of over $70 million in postsecondary investments in institutional transformation in the United States. She previously served in leadership roles with the Lumina Foundation for Education and The Heinz Endowments.
The numbers are in. Women are graduating at higher levels than men, yet why are more males occupying positions of power? Why do women shy away from seeking roles with authority?
Suzanne Walsh pondered the same questions, even before she became the 19th President of Bennett College. Walsh has twenty years’ experience in philanthropy but it wasn’t until she worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that she focused on institutional transformation.
During her tenure there, Walsh noted an odd gender inequity in higher education, almost the reverse of what she’d observed in other fields. Though statistics clearly demonstrate most undergraduate students are female, males still hold a disproportionate number of authority positions in the industry. “Women are graduating, but something is getting in our way from being in those leadership roles within our own industry and more broadly.”
One main concern could be that women, particularly women of color, experience imposter syndrome far more acutely than male counterparts. Walsh admits she’s spotted a marked gender difference in applications as well as interviews. First, there weren’t nearly as many women even applying. Of those females who did apply, most held themselves to ridiculous, and frankly unrealistic, standards. In short, the pressure is very different for females than for males who are culturally expected to be in positions of power.
Walsh confesses that, despite her own impressive portfolio, she was certainly not immune from feelings of inadequacy. “At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we cared about low-income, first-generation students of color. I was like, ‘Let me see if I can apply what I’ve learned in real life [at Bennet college].’”
When she arrived at Bennett College, Walsh consistently used a military term, V.U.C.A. V.U.C.A. states the world is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. According to Walsh, for any strategy to work, leaders are wise to appreciate these factors.
Not only did she apply V.U.C.A. to maneuvering pandemic crises, but she’s also used it to better connect Corporate America with emerging talent. Walsh speaks from the trenches, using her personal history to show women they too can dare to lead. With the right dose of creativity and fearlessness, Walsh is proof positive females are reaching higher, and a good sign the gender the gap could soon be a historic footnote.
