Initiated by the Diversity Commission of the School's CSR Committee, the "Talent & Career" department sets up workshops for Master in Management final year female students, adressing the different stages of negotiating the first salary.

According to the CGE (French Business School Conference) 2019 barometer on gender equality, the pay gap for business school graduates is 11% in favour of men. Pay inequality, which continues to persist in 2020, has raised many questions among our female students.

"On the basis of these observations, which were discussed by the School CSR Committee's Diversity Commission, the Talent & Career department made workshops, entitled "Jeunes ProfessionnELLES" (young professionals), available for MiM final year students focusing on the role of women in business and how to negotiate a starting salary with a view to eliminating or at least reducing this gap," explains Vicky Millar, Career Advisor and member of the Diversity Commission.


These interactive ZOOM workshops were held during May and June 2020 and run by Leïla Rigoreau, 2016 MiM graduate and founder of EqualitYX, and Roxane de Pelet, founder of the Epicene Project, which raises awareness on gender equality in the workplace. They were a resounding success according to the fifty or so students who attended, as Laurenne-Sya Luce, who particularly appreciated the advice given, explains: "Using practical cases and training exercises, we were shown how to go about negotiating our starting salary, the different stages of negotiation and how to build an argument and manage objections effectively during a negotiation."

The programme also included lessons on how to succeed through self-assertion and the historical and cultural explanations for the existence of the gender pay gap.

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Key professional gender equality dates in France:

1965: Women's right to work without their husband's consent and to open their own bank account
1972: Recognition of the principle of "equal pay for equal work".
1983: Roudy Law on professional gender equality in the workplace
2006: Law on Equal Pay for Women and Men
2019: Obligation for companies to calculate and publish their "Gender Equality Index".​