Sri Mulyani Indrawati Quotes

I feel strongly about the need for diversity, and with good reason. I'm from a generation of women that found it exhilarating to shatter the glass ceiling. We viewed obstacles as opportunities and earned our seat at the leadership table.

When I first became a lawyer, only 2% of the bar was women. People would always think I was a secretary. In those days, professional women in the business world wore hats. So I started wearing hats.

The failure of women to have reached positions of leadership has been due in large part to social and professional discrimination.

I think women benefit from being in places and having positions where the quality of work is the criteria, not what you look like. Not every place is like that.

For me, as a woman in one of the less diverse fields - electrical engineering, which is what I studied in college - it was hard to persist and really build a career. Some of the things I experienced were really scary, and they weren't experiences that I wanted for my daughter.

I don't face any particular problems as a woman president because I have been a professional for a long time. I keep telling people: I am a technocrat who happens to be a woman.

Females get hired along procreative lines. After 40, we're kind of cooked.

Whenever you see a successful woman, look out for three men who are going out of their way to try to block her.

It's such a male-dominated industry. You can be a feminist, it's just difficult because it sometimes comes back at you.

The roots of Silicon Valley are full of stories of immigrants and minority groups who experienced bigotry and made it anyway. Why should women be any different?

Women have made tons of progress. But we still have a small percentage of the top jobs in any industry, in any nation in the world. I think that's partly because from a very young age, we encourage our boys to lead and we call our girls bossy.

The term 'glass ceiling' was coined in 1984. More than 20 years later, the ceiling has barely cracked. There isn't a single country in the world that has as many female as male politicians. In business, the situation is even worse. Its highest echelon - the board - remains a chauvinist's dream.

The failure of women to have reached positions of leadership has been due in large part to social and professional discrimination. In the past, few women have tried, and even fewer have succeeded.

My answer to those who oppose my appointment as CEO is that this is really a decision of the YWCA. They want to strengthen their grassroots to advocate on behalf of women's and children's empowerment and ending racism.

Being a woman in music was fine, but when I wanted to direct, I was poking my head into a man's world.

There's no one on this earth taken less seriously in a leadership context than a young woman - everything is against you.

We live in a world where sports have the potential to bridge the gap between racism, sexism and discrimination. The 2012 Olympic Games was a great start but hopefully what these games taught us is that if women are given an opportunity on an equal playing field the possibilities for women are endless.

I have tried to be a leader. I have tried in my role of being one of the first women at Google, let alone the first woman to have a baby, to really try to set the tone that this is a great place to work for diversity reasons.

When Donald Trump is in charge, all that counts is ability, effort, and excellence. This has long been the philosophy at the Trump Organization. At my father's company, there are more female than male executives. Women are paid equally for the work that we do, and when a woman becomes a mother, she is supported, not shut out.

I'm just glad that there's some diversity in the music industry with women so people know that you can be literally anything and still be able to make it.

Women don't necessarily understand that it is possible to have the same level of ambition as men - they allow themselves to be held back by the obstacles rather than empowered by the possibilities.

Being the first female Doctor and showing children that their heroes in shows don't always look the same is a huge honour for me.

If you're going into finance, you might be dealing with a lot of sexism and a lot of alpha behavior. How are you going to deal with that? How are you going to feel powerful and comfortable with being who you are?

For women, no matter what career, what path you choose, it's still an uphill battle to work your way up to these top leadership positions. And you're much more closely scrutinized for everything - for things that men are not.

I want women, especially young women, to create a world where your success is not based on being young.