By Bill McDonald, managing director of Accenture, Scotland

WHEN President Obama stepped down from the Oval Office I was reminded of one of his most famous headlines: “this is what a feminist looks like”.

The former leader of the free world was celebrating the fact that the rights of women had come a long way. Women made up roughly half the workforce and are represented – in some instances at the very top – in almost every industry. The progress made by women towards holding an equal place in society is to be welcomed and congratulated.

But, as he contemplated his own daughters’ future, the point he was also making was that men too have a pivotal role to play in ensuring that women’s progress in terms of education, health and work, continued at pace.

Equality shouldn’t be seen as exclusively a women’s issue.

In today’s economy, the reality is that equality, gender balance and diversity are critical to business sustainability. A business needs to recruit the best talent to stimulate growth and women make up half of the talent pool available. But it’s not just simple demographics. Many studies have shown that diversity at board or project level leads to better decision-making. And this means it’s in all our interests – men and women – to drive gender balance in the workplace.

Accenture employs more than 145,000 women, representing more than one-third of our global workforce. Thirty per cent of Accenture’s managing director promotions in 2016 were women – the largest percentage of women ever promoted to this level. Today, 25 per cent of Accenture’s Global Management Committee, our primary governance group, are women and 38 per cent of Accenture’s external board of directors are women, including our lead director. We welcome the gender pay gap legislation. Being open and transparent about the situation is a positive step towards taking further action to reduce and ultimately eliminate discrepancies.

From the top down, our approach is to recognise that each person has unique strengths and by embracing those strengths we deliver high performance. Inclusion and diversity are fundamental to our culture.

Creating a workplace that attracts the best talent is about embracing flexible working and breaking down prejudices. Men should be encouraged to take shared parental leave; there should be no discrimination against those who choose to take a career break and talented women should not be prevented from applying for or securing promotion by the needs of family and childcare.

While technology advances allow for home working and collaborations across offices that are physically miles apart, we have also set up internal networking groups to build confidence through access to role models and senior employees – male and female.

Men clearly have a role in helping to create the flexible working environment in which women can excel. Through good work practices it is possible to create opportunity for both men and women.

However, creating opportunity also needs to go hand in hand with instilling ambition. We operate in a world of technology and our own research into the uptake of science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) subjects at school shows that interest needs to be stimulated and sustained from a young age. Our most recent survey highlights that girls are still grappling with stereotypes and negative perceptions of Stem subjects from an early stage of schooling.

The transition from primary to secondary school marks a decline in girls enjoying traditional Stem subjects. So it is incumbent on us to demonstrate the fulfilment and personal satisfaction that can be derived from pursuing Stem.

Young women should not be deterred from Stem subjects and careers by outdated bias. Women are greater users of technology than men and so clearly have a role to play when it comes to scientific and technological development.

Both men and women should be influencing the progress towards gender balance in the workplace. Men, in fact, can be women’s biggest allies and for that reason, I am delighted that Management Today and the Women’s Business Council will announce the first male Agents of Change at the Inspiring Women Conference in Edinburgh tomorrow, fittingly on the day after International Women’s Day. It is an acknowledgement that equality is being championed by men and will hopefully act as a catalyst for others to step forward to do the same.

As the father of a daughter myself, as well as a husband and of course a colleague to many talented women at Accenture, I have seen how attitudes have changed. Men, as much as women, are the agents of change. It’s good for business; and it is the right thing to do.