Honoring International Women’s Day – Every Day

While International Women’s Day falls on Thursday, March 8, Vertex strives to honor the annual campaign’s principles each day throughout the year.

In our mission to leverage the strategic potential of corporate tax worldwide, we strive to be the worldwide provider of choice, partner of choice and employer of choice in the tax industry. Our values are founded in a commitment to and respect for people.

We demonstrate this respect in many ways, which bears a brief mention on a day that spotlights gender issues in the workplace. This year’s IWD theme, “press for progress,” dovetails nicely with some of our recent gains and recognition – including being named as one Working Mother’s 100 Best Companies, as my colleague Jen Kurtz, our chief technology officer, described in this post.

Working Mother collects extensive data about corporate workforce policies and then conducts an exhaustive analysis of the data to determine which companies warrant inclusion on its annual Best Companies list. The World Economic Forum (WEF), top consulting firms and many other organizations now apply a similar rigor and thoughtfulness to their analyses of gender issues in the workplace and their impact on organizational cultures, brands and bottom lines. Workforce gender issues represent one of the WEF’s key research areas. Human resources consulting giant Mercer continually updates its comprehensive, ongoing study of women in the workplace – research that now covers 583 organizations in 42 countries, representing 3.2 million employees, including 1.3 million women.

As part of my leadership role at Vertex, I co-founded the Philadelphia Women’s Tax Network, where we share legislative updates, industry trends and issues that affect women in the workplace. We welcome all levels of tax professionals to network and share experiences. The group has been together for over five years and while the main objective is to grow in our tax roles, we also manage to keep it light and support each other personally and professionally.

March 8 really only marks the kick-off of the IWD campaign theme for the next 12 months. While it is important to reflect on women and workforce issues today, it is equally important to address these issues – thoughtfully, rigorously and continually – by acting with integrity and demonstrating respect in all areas of life, every day.