We often hear that workplaces are meritocratic. But if that was true, would white women and people of color still be earning so much less than men? Would those board rooms be quite so male? Sarah Kaplan speaks to the National Organization for Women’s Feminism Now podcast about how the notion of meritocracy is a tool of the patriarchy, justifying bias towards the people in positions of privilege and harming the careers of people who have not had this same wind at their back.

In this episode of The Pink Tax Podcast, we speak with Sarah Kaplan, a leading expert in gender and the economy. We discuss the persistent issues of gender inequality, the challenges of proving the business case for diversity, and the backlash against DEI initiatives. We need more innovative solutions to promote gender equality, and we must recognize caregiving roles in leadership. We also dove deep into what meritocracy is, whether or not we actually live in one and the limitations of meritocracy.

Sarah Kaplan speaks with Google Exec Stephanie Wong for the In Real Life podcast about what we really know about workplace equality. You’ll be in for some surprises.

Professor Sarah Kaplan, an expert on stakeholder engagement, views trade-offs between stakeholder needs as opportunities for innovation. However, navigating these challenges is far from easy. Her advice in the face of failure? Don’t give up – try something else. She appears on the Pi-Squared podcast.

Rotman professor, Sarah Kaplan, champions inclusive product and service innovation—for social good and competitive advantage—in this interview for IEDP. The idea that business innovations should appeal equally to everyone seems obvious, because it makes good business sense. Yet, in discussing Inclusive Business Innovation, her new program at the University of Toronto Kaplan tries to show how the commercial aspect follows from being more inclusive. “I sometimes resist the business case argument, because it downplays the importance of just being good for the community. But Inclusive Business Innovation is about win-wins.”  Unfortunately, this clear business and social win often does not happen.

For decades the ‘glass ceiling’ dominated conversations about the lack of women in executive roles. But there’s growing recognition of significant gaps at the earlier stages of women’s careers. Women often stall at the entry level. For every 100 men promoted to manager, there are only 72 women, and the situation is worse for women of colour, the report found. On June 18, The Globe and Mail hosted a webcast examining how progressive organizations and thought leaders are reassessing who gets hired and promoted at work.

The Governance Solutions podcast welcomes Sarah Kaplan to talk about corporate governance, corporate purpose and diversity on boards. Her focus is applying an innovation lens to understanding the challenges of achieving gender equality, and other social goods, has helped us to change (and understand) the society that we live in.

In this interview for Harvard Business School’s Institue for Business in Global Society, Sarah Kaplan says that to drive meaningful change in board diversity and corporate purpose, businesses and regulators must move beyond soft-touch approaches and focus on thorough implementation and understanding of the challenges, as evidenced by research on disclosure regulations and their varied impact on firms.

Business leaders and policy makers often fail to consider how their policies, products, services and processes can have impacts on inequality. To unlock innovative opportunities using an intersectional gender lens, GATE joined with our Rotman partner, the TD Management and Data Analytics lab, to host a one-day conference called “Gender Analytics: Possibilities” (or GAP). This limited-edition GATE Audio productions podcast hosted by Sarah Kaplan shares panel conversations from the conference on topics like decolonizing data and design, inclusive government policy, responsible AI, and more.

Current conversations about diversity and inclusion often forget that these are not just talent management issues but affect how products, services and policies create outcomes that differ by gender, race, differences in ability, Indigeneity and other intersecting identities. In this talk, titled "Inclusive Product, Service and Policy Design: Flipping the Script on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion", Professor Sarah Kaplan shares the work of the Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE) to explore what inclusive design would look like. Using examples from across industries and sectors, we’ll examine how a more inclusive economy could be achieved by organizations.

The Sorenson Impact Center led a roundtable discussion at the event with a group of leading impact professionals to explore the theory of stakeholder capitalism and how it is evolving for a new era of business.

The labour market never started off level for women and men. Women have and continue to be clustered in the “5Cs”: cleaning, catering, cashiering, clerical and caring. Dr. Sarah Kaplan, Director, Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE), talks to Level the Paying Field host Kadie Ward, Commissioner and CAO of Ontario's Pay Equity Commission, about gender’s role in today’s labour market, and whether we are moving to a meritocracy.