Women ‘will be the key factor in future change and growth around the world’, claims Marie Lalleman, SVP managing director global retailers at Nielsen.
During the Global Summit for Women, Lalleman addressed delegates suggesting that in five years the global income of women will grow twice the size of the expected GDP of India and China combined.
Marie Lalleman, SVP managing director global retailers at Neilsen said, “Women will be the key factor in future change and growth around the world: by 2020 women will control $28 trillion of global consumer spending and 90 million additional women will enter the global workforce in the next two years.”
“Major changes around the world are taking place in regards to women’s role in society – cultural, economic, religious and political – and no-one can afford to ignore this structural shift.”
Continuing Lalleman said, “My theme at the summit is to suggest what we should be doing about these global mega-trends to the benefit of business, countries and people – especially women.”
“For example, there’s still a connectivity gap in parts of Africa and Asia for women who are much less likely than men to have a mobile phone. We need to address that to advance women’s digital and financial inclusion – particularly in countries with mobile money networks – to unlock significant growth potential as women play such a key role in purchase decisions.”
Lalleman went on to suggest that as women will be important for future economic growth, more should be done to ensure they can achieve their aspirations and priorities. While the second biggest male aspiration is to make money, this is not even among the top aspirations for women.
Nicknamed ‘Davos for women’, the summit was created with the aim of uniting public, private and not for profit organisation with the common vision of expanding and encouraging women’s economic opportunities throughout the world. Now in its 26th year, the summit is expected to see over 1,000 women during the three-day conference in Warsaw, Poland.
Delegates from over 60 countries are attending, including Agata Kornhauser-Duda, First Lady of Poland; Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh, Vice President of Vietnam; and Baroness Sandip Verma, Under Secretary of State for International Development, UK.
