MUNICH (dpa-AFX) – A photo of the heads of business enterprises having lunch on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Friday caused a stir on the internet. You can see a large, laid, U-shaped table at which around 30 men are having a business lunch – not a single woman among them. The editor-in-chief of “The Pioneer”, Michael Brcker, took the photo and shared it on Twitter on Saturday.
SPD politician Sawsan Chebli tweeted: “This picture is like it’s from another world. But it’s not another world. It’s reality in 2022. This is what the CEO lunch at #MSC2022 looks like. Here is power and here is lack Women. We still have a lot to do.”
According to the Munich Security Conference, the final quota of women among the speakers in the main program of this year’s conference was 45 percent. In the group of top managers represented at the conference, the relationship was obviously different. Joe Kaeser, former CEO of Siemens, who can also be seen in the photo, tweeted on Saturday: “Next year we will do better. I will raise this at the feedback meeting of the MSC Advisory Committee tomorrow.”
After the meeting on Sunday, Kaeser told the editorial network Germany (RND) that the group of men in the photo also resulted from the cancellation of women at the event. All ten women who had registered were also invited. However, eight women canceled again. One promised but didn’t come. Another was there, but could not be seen in the photo, said Kaeser.
Kaeser, who chairs the MSC Advisory Committee, announced that he would change the invitation practice next year. “We will very specifically invite women from the group of participants of the MSC and pay attention to a more balanced relationship.”/tr/DP/jha