Local businessman urges men to accelerate women's advancement

Women need more than mentors to move up the corporate ladder. “Women need culture change in order to advance. And culture change happens from the top, where male executives sit.” says D.C. business leader and author John Keyser, founder and CEO of Common Sense Leadership, a D.C. area leadership consulting and coaching firm.

Keyser is former head of development at Georgetown University Medical Center, and was in senior leadership positions with insurance brokerage giants Johnson & Higgins and Marsh & McLennan, and with the Damon Runyan Cancer Research Center. Keyser is a graduate of Georgetown University and Georgetown’s Institute for Transformational Leadership.

“I’ve been in business for over 40 years and often the most talented people I work with are women,” says Keyser. “Throughout their careers, women face enormous gender-specific issues and challenges in the workplace. It’s time to change the way we do business: women are business savvy, women make 80% of buying decisions and women build strong culture. It’s time for us men to make way for women in the C-suites!”

Keyser’s recent book, Make Way for Women: Men and Women Leading Together Improve Culture and Profits, is a call to action for male senior executives of Fortune 500 and other large and mid-size companies to initiate or expand gender-inclusive leadership within their companies. Keyser details the steps that CEOs, top executives, and talent-development professionals need to take right now in order to be forward-thinking leaders who will attract and retain the best talent.

In Make Way for Women, Keyser and local co-author Adrienne Hand profile 45 male and female industry leaders in finance, law, education, sports management, social entrepreneurship and other industries, who share their stories and insights about how women and men lead differently, and how together, men and women form the strongest leadership. The book’s case studies and research prove that gender-balanced leadership is key to retaining talent and driving profits, and the strategies in the book detail how to change culture and bring more women into leadership.