Companies must act now to remain viable.

WHY
BGA?

STUDIES
… confirm a statistically significant correlation between diverse leadership teams and financial outperformance. In addition, the inclusion of highly diverse individuals is a significant success factor for higher profitability.

GERMANY
is either at the bottom or occupies ranking places in the lower third in representative international studies on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, which we want to change promptly and permanently.

Diversity – Is much more than gender.
Leading positions, particularly in executive and supervisory boards, should be filled with the most suitable persons regardless of disabilities, gender, age, cultural and social background, or sexual orientation and gender identity in order to ensure long-term international competitiveness.

Inclusion – Diversity without inclusion is nothing but PR.
Without an inclusive organizational structure and culture, companies with highly diversified teams will not see economic benefits. However, if an inclusive environment is established, positive results will be seen in recruiting and in retaining of specialists and managers, as well an increase in appreciation for differing contributions.


OBJECTIVE

The most significant network for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) in the German economy aims to secure and expand the international competitiveness of German business by strategically, and for the long-term, embedding DE&I in the DNA of listed and medium-sized companies.

The goal is to ensure equal opportunities for individuals with disabilities, of any gender, age, cultural and social background or different sexual orientation and gender identity when filling management board positions and supervisory board mandates, thus bringing about a cultural change with the involvement of politics, society and business.

In order to make BeyondGenderAgenda a broad movement across society, we are working to drive the public debate through sustainable agenda setting, social media campaigning, studies and active communication with ambassadors.


DIMENSIONS

BeyondGenderAgenda focuses on anchoring DE&I in German economy, politics and society. The dimensions DisabilityEthnicityGenderGenerationLGBTIQ+ and Social Mobility represent the target groups for which there is currently no equal opportunity mandates in staffing for executive and supervisory board positions. 

All dimensions are equally important and there is no ranking or prioritization. BGA's commitment is designed to make individual dimensions redundant over time because equality has been achieved. However, it is likely that more dimensions will be added.


FOUNDER

We want to make com­pa­nies more di­ver­se and make a per­so­nal and pro­fes­sio­nal cont­ri­bu­ti­on to en­su­ring that Ger­ma­ny does not con­ti­nue to lose eco­no­mic power and per­forms bet­ter in in­ter­na­tio­nal di­ver­si­ty ran­kings in the fu­ture.

Vic­to­ria Wag­ner cle­ar­ly de­fi­ned this aspi­ra­ti­on back in Ja­nu­a­ry 2020 when she foun­ded Ger­many’s most im­portant di­ver­si­ty net­work, BeyondGenderAgenda. Sin­ce then, the to­pics of di­ver­si­ty, equal op­por­tu­nities and in­clu­si­on have been high on the agen­da of Ger­man com­pa­nies, me­dia and po­li­tics. With more than 25 ye­ars of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and con­sul­ting ex­per­ti­se for in­ter­na­tio­nal cor­po­ra­ti­ons, the se­ri­al foun­der re­co­gni­zed ear­ly on the risk that com­pa­nies igno­ring di­ver­si­ty as a busi­ness fac­tor cri­ti­cal to suc­cess would jeo­par­di­ze their fu­ture via­bi­li­ty.

The­re­fo­re, Bey­ond­Gen­de­rAd­vice was foun­ded in July 2021. As a stra­te­gic com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons con­sul­tan­cy, it ac­com­pa­nies their cli­ents du­ring their in­di­vi­du­al di­ver­si­ty trans­for­ma­ti­on as a pro­vi­der of ide­as, stra­te­gy con­sul­tant and com­mu­ni­ca­tor.

VictoriaWagner

Victoria
Wagner

Founder & CEO BeyondGenderAgenda


FAQS
FREGUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Our goal is to anchor diversity and an inclusive work environment integrally in the DNA of listed and medium-sized companies. We want to ensure equal opportunities for senior executives regardless of gender, ages, cultural and social backgrounds, sexual orientation and gender identity when it comes to staffing executive and supervisory board mandates. The aim is to establish a change of culture involving politics, society and economy.

Through her strategy consultancy ALTERNATIVLOS, Vicky works with top executives and helps them grow their influence and positioning in order to take the next step on the career ladder. Through this experience (along with her longstanding career), she realized that there was not only a lack of access and opportunities for many female-identifying leaders, but for others that fall within various diversity dimensions. And with that, Vicky decided to not only create a network to break the “glass ceiling” that women face, but one that works on supporting all individuals who are part of communities that have been, and continue to be, overlooked, left out, and not given equitable opportunities in the business world.

We are fully committed to furthering diversity, equity and inclusion until diversity in business and society is valued and all individuals are given equitable opportunities when companies are filling executive and supervisory board positions.

In Germany, gender is usually thought of when referring to diversity, but diversity goes well beyond gender—it is a full range of dimensions that includes, not only Gender, but Disability, Generation, Ethnicity, LGBTIQ+, and Social Mobility. At BGA, we are working to broaden how German companies, and society, defines and views diversity, so that it can truly become a valued and crucial part of our economy.

In the common German usage, inclusion has come to mean the integration of people with disabilities. However, it is much more than that. Inclusion is what makes real participation possible within a group or structure. More than simply diversity and numerical representation, inclusion involves authentic and empowered participation and a true sense of belonging.

Diversity management is the endeavor to utilize the diversity of people for the competitiveness and creativity of the entire company and to prevent discrimination against underrepresented groups.

Not at all. We believe that it will take countless companies, organizations, and individuals working together to create a more diverse and inclusive economy, and so the more initiatives and networks there are committed to diversity and equal opportunities, the better. We are open and committed to cooperation and are happy to make our contribution through networking and joint activities to make Germany more diverse and inclusive.

BeyondGenderAgenda is an initiative for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) and advocates for equal opportunities for all managers and top executive positions. And as a digital initiative, we offer our platform, together with our community, to promote DE&I in a way that attracts public attention, cultivates meaningful dialogue, uplifts innovative ideas, and as a result, bring about cultural change.

BeyondGenderAgenda believes diversity and inclusion should be on the agenda of the German economy and wants to anchor them integrally in the DNA of companies and through positive examples, resources, and suggestions on how equal opportunities and participation can be successfully implemented in day-to-day business, we hope that companies come to create changes on their own. But if all efforts do not lead to the desired cultural change in business, politics and society, then we do support quotas as methods for change. Our advisory councils and ambassadors may disagree, but we at BGA hold this belief within our own organization.

BeyondGenderAgenda is an exclusively digital initiative, therefore we do not hold personal meetups. However, we have an active and growing digital community so please feel free to use all digital opportunities to exchange ideas comments, ratings, articles, videos or podcasts with us and our community.

Anyone can join our initiative and community simply by personally advocating for diversity and inclusion. We invite anyone who is passionate about this work to campaign for our topics on your own channels and share content from BeyondGenderAgenda channels, where you can also interact with our posts, videos and podcasts. If you would like to get involved in a more formal role, you can also initiate a partnership with BeyondGenderAgenda through your company. Here you can inquire a strategic partnership.

We also offer ambassador membership for private individuals. This form of membership also enables private individuals to get involved on behalf of BeyondGenderAgenda for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

We expect our partner companies to be committed to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and to be seriously and credibly working to promote the topic within their own organization and in public. If you would like to become a partner of BeyondGenderAgenda with your company, feel free to contact us. Here you can inquire a strategic partnership.

Our advisory board members act as ambassadors for BGA and for the topic of DE&I, both internally (within their own company) and externally in public. They also play a great role in informing our work and connecting to some of Germany’s largest companies, so that we can create change. Our advisory board members are actively committed to diversity and inclusion and thus contribute individually, and through their partner companies, to cultural change within politics, society, and the economy.

We are very purposeful when it comes to selecting our advisory board members and take a variety of qualifications into consideration when inviting individuals to join. So BGA will reach out directly to perspective boad members and invite them to a personal exchange. If both the individual addressed and the company behind them are interested in promoting Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and supporting BGA's mission, a new and impactful partnership is created and they will join our board. Companies alone can also become partners of BeyondGenderAgenda without having an individual staff member on our board. Here you can inquire a strategic partnership.


CONTACT

Beyond Gender Agenda GmbH

Kaiserswerther Straße 282
40474 Düsseldorf

+49 211 90 988 960
info@beyondgenderagenda.com