A lot of media attention is focussed on women in top positions. How many female business leaders are there? What percentage of women head up departments at major organisations? Should we set targets or quotas for getting women into top jobs?

But there are two issues with this line of questioning, one that can be addressed quickly and the other which is a long-term ambition. The first is to do with visibility. There are many women at the top of their professions who are excellent role models, but they often aren't as publicly visible as their male counterparts.

This is in part down to the lack of female chief executives – the most visible role in a business. Naturally, we need more female CEOs: women hold the top job at just 5.5% of FTSE-100 firms and 4.2% of FTSE-250 companies. In the short term though, more can be done to publicise the women who are already industry leaders, showing the way for all who come afterwards.

In Scotland, we're lucky to have a female First Minister – demonstrating to women across the country what they can achieve in their careers with dedication and hard work. But, in many businesses, a pathway to the top won't be so obvious.

Getting more women into high-profile positions is an enduring challenge; and so the second issue is where we focus our attention. Businesses need to look at how they are nurturing women who have just started out in their careers, and how they develop within the organisation, if any are to get to the top.

That will mean laying the right foundations for women at junior levels, not just appointing some women to a board in the hope that doing so ticks the gender diversity box. Cultural change will be part of this, not only in businesses, but across society too. After all, it wasn't that long ago that it was unusual for women to have a bank account – look how far we've come in the last 50 years.  

A supportive working environment is another important step, giving women the choice of a meaningful and challenging career while still being able to act as the primary carer in their household, if that's what they choose to do. Flexible working, eliminating unconscious bias and proactively pushing women forward are just some of the ways this can be achieved.

To that end, Deloitte is taking steps to embed these values in our workplace. We have an ambition to make sure 25% of our partner group will be women by 2020 and 30% by 2030. We're supporting this with our female 'sponsorship' initiative, whereby women are backed by someone in the business who takes responsibility for proactively promoting and encouraging them to raise their profile and visibility.

In spring 2014, we introduced our WorkAgility programme to help our people achieve their ideal work-life balance. In addition, we are progressing workplace inclusivity through a network of 10 diversity groups and last year we introduced our back to work scheme for mothers looking to return to the firm.

The benefits of empowering women to play a greater role in business are widespread and the subject of a lot of academic analysis. But, at the top level, it boils down to one thing: if our economy is to be the best it can be, it needs access to the entire talent pool... and women make up half of the population.

I think it will be a generation before we see the change required. But, ultimately, success will mean we don't need to have conversations about pay gaps and equal treatment of men and women. We won't need to have groups about gender diversity. And we won't need to publish articles like this one.

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