![Anna Green, a partner at the Boston Consulting Group and co-global head of their media practice.](/content/dam/images/g/t/w/v/d/s/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.gtwlml.png/1485264040119.jpg)
Giving women roles in the commercial side of client relationships is one of the key tactics that the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has used to increase the proportion of women at the top of the firm.
"We figured out a few years back that women weren't being brought in by the senior partners on our big commercial relationships in the same way our men were – which is both critical for success, but also even more necessary if you are coming in and out over a career [due to factors such as maternity leave]," Anna Green, a partner who leads the firm's Sydney office, said.
"[So] we put in place a model where we matched every woman project leader and above with a senior and very commercially successful partner.
"That relationship is all about setting up the woman in a strong commercial platform and we hold the sponsor accountable for that happening."
One of six female partners
Ms Green, who became partner in 2012 and is now one of six women partners in the firm's Australia and New Zealand operation, said the target is to grow the proportion of women partners from 20 per cent to 30 per cent by 2020.
Across the strategy houses, the percentage of full-time permanent female management ranges from 20 per cent at Bain to 24 per cent at BCG and McKinsey, according to filings with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).
The progress made by the strategy houses into gender equity is telling, as they are the same firms that sell their expertise about women in the workplace, drivers of gender parity and how to fix the gender gap.
Ms Green, who has three boys, aged between four and 12, also oversees the firm's Women@BCG development initiative for the Asia-Pacific.
Fathers not asked about kids
She has mixed feelings about being asked about combining three kids and her job.
"It is full-on and ever changing — I'd like to think no different from any actively involved, working parent," Ms Green said.
"But the reality is, as a society, we are not quite there yet. There would not be a day that I'm not asked how I'm coping with work and the kids etcetera. Sometimes I appreciate it and am glad people care. But mostly, I just wish it was something asked equally to fathers."
Ms Green admitted that she didn't really understand the pressures of combining work and parenthood until she became a mother and now it was "almost impossible to remember life before kids".
She added that "like any working family, we have a 'village' to raise the kids."
"I'm particularly lucky with a super-supportive husband, who quit life as a chef working with [celebrity chef] Matt Moran and is now studying at UNSW, and parents who live 200 metres away and who are incredibly close with my kids," she said.
"Sometimes it feels like the four of us are raising our boys."
Added into this mix are a nanny and her executive assistant.
"I wouldn't manage well without help and realise I'm lucky enough to have it," Ms Green said.
Buffer is critical
She said the hardest part of the balancing act was "probably the volatility of never knowing what a week will hold, which can make schedules hard to lock down".
"Lots of 'buffer' in the home helps, and kids who are equally comfortable with my husband or parents," Ms Green said.
Ms Green, co-leads BCG's global work in media, said her decision to work in the media and telco space early meant she could more easily fit back into work after each of her three stints on maternity leave.
"[I]t was so much easier to come back into a domain I knew well rather than be thrown into the deep end in a new industry and problem," she sad.
Women in strategy