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Stop playing gladiators in office, Girls’ Day School Trust chief tells men

Men in the boardroom must stop seeing themselves as Colosseum gladiators, a leader of girls’ schools says in a speech to be given today.

Too many women experience combative workplaces whereas leadership should be a “gender-diverse concept”, according to Cheryl Giovannoni, chief executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust. She tells its annual conference that the culture must change: “To those who see themselves not so much as leaders of complex organisations but gladiators striding into the arena, this has to stop. The meeting room is not the Colosseum. And, frankly, you are not Russell Crowe.”

The trust represents 25 schools, most of them independent. Ms Giovannoni quotes Tom Mylne, the head teacher of Streatham & Clapham Prep School, as saying that he had no male applicants for teaching jobs but when he advertised for a deputy head more than half the candidates were men “many of them having little experience but great and, I suspect, speculative ambition. I appointed a highly impressive woman”.

She says that the difference between men and women should be celebrated: “We need to create a modern world where these powerful feminine traits are equally valued and expressed by both men and women.”

Read more at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stop-playing-gladiators-in-the-office-girls-schools-leader-tells-men-f86x0jcn0

Goldman Sachs has allowed one of its high-flying managing directors to scale back his duties at the investment bank to take up a job at Stonyhurst College.

Stephen Withnell, who looks after the metals and mining sector, will be moving his young family to the Ribble Valley in Lancashire to take up the post of director of strategic development at Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit public school where he is a governor and former student.

Mr Withnell, 38, said that he was looking forward to using his experience of advising on more than $100 billion of transactions to boost the school’s fundraising, endowment activity and external affairs. Unusually, he will continue working for Goldman.

“Kudos to Goldman,” he said. “When I started talking about this, they were very supportive and agreed to customise my job so I could do both. Stonyhurst will be my main job, but I’ll remain an MD at Goldman, albeit focusing on a smaller, select group of clients.”

Read more at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/goldman-s-man-provides-a-lesson-others-can-learn-0k9668wh9