Diversity and inclusion creates robust corporations, increased employee satisfaction, and improved bottom lines
Diversity and inclusion rarely occurs by itself. But you can encourage such a culture by formulating visions, defining objectives and working specifically with both strategies, people, and processes in organisations. The outcome will then be significantly reflected in a stronger culture, increased innovation, and an improved bottom line.
The figures are not up for discussion. Diversity is good for business. Gender balance, diversity, and inclusion creates improved results – for the organisation, for the employees, and for our society.
Increased diversity and inclusion also comes with more innovation, as all competencies and perspectives are brought into play, and so ensures that the collective talent is exploited in the best way possible. Furthermore, a culture that fosters inclusion brings down sick leave and creates more loyalty among employees towards their workplace. Additionally, an inclusive and diverse culture increases the mutual understanding among professional groups and teams, while breaking down silos.
A stronger emphasis on diversity is really about unleashing a huge potential. Many leaders and organisations worldwide have spotted the potential long ago, but gender balance, diversity, and inclusion still remain areas that management and boards find difficult to approach in a strategic, structured, and targeted manner.
The figures are not up for discussion. Diversity is good for business. Gender balance, diversity, and inclusion creates improved results – for the organisation, for the employees, and for our society.
Increased diversity and inclusion also comes with more innovation, as all competencies and perspectives are brought into play, and so ensures that the collective talent is exploited in the best way possible. Furthermore, a culture that fosters inclusion brings down sick leave and creates more loyalty among employees towards their workplace. Additionally, an inclusive and diverse culture increases the mutual understanding among professional groups and teams, while breaking down silos.
A stronger emphasis on diversity is really about unleashing a huge potential. Many leaders and organisations worldwide have spotted the potential long ago, but gender balance, diversity, and inclusion still remain areas that management and boards find difficult to approach in a strategic, structured, and targeted manner.
*Diversity creates results:
- Highly diverse teams increase the quality of decision-making with up to 87% (Forbes)
- Decisions made and implemented by highly diverse employee teams delivered 60% better results. (Forbes)
- Organisations with a minimum of 30% female top leaders creates 6% better results.(PIIE)
- Organisations with female representatives in the board have a return of equity that is 47% better than organisation without females in the board (McKinsey)
- In 2016 ISS proved that diversity in management measured as gender, age distribution, seniority, and ethnicity on average provide 12.6 percentage points more on the bottom line. (Source)
- Inclusion brings down sick leave with approximately 1 working day a year. In municipalities in Denmark this would equal savings of 320 million DKK on the social and health area alone. (Source)

” The key to healthy organisations and a sustainable future is that we understand and are able to exploit the strengh of diversity and inclusion.
When we take a holistic approach and dare to listen to the different perspectives from diverse stakeholders, we gear ourselves for succes.”
Marianne Egelund Siig, CEO Mannaz
” The key to healthy organisations and a sustainable future is that we understand and are able to exploit the strengh of diversity and inclusion.
When we take a holistic approach and dare to listen to the different perspectives from diverse stakeholders, we gear ourselves for succes.“
Marianne Egelund Siig
CEO Mannaz
How do you achieve increased diversity?
At Mannaz we have plenty of experience helping organisations approach better gender balances, greater diversity, and increased inclusion in a more targeted manner.
Some organisations are already well on their way, but still seek a more strategic and structured approach. Others need to work with their culture and the consciousness of their leaders and employees.
We can help in both ends of the spectrum.
Mannaz has over several years worked with the core elements of the inclusive leadership and the inclusive organisation through dialogue-based leadership and systemic understanding of organisations. We therefore have knowledge, methods, and experience that create a strong foundation for result-oriented counselling.
We give advice within areas such as:
- Development of a strategy for gender equality, diversity, and inclusion (D&I)
- Cultural change, for instance the inclusive leadership and the inclusive organisation
- The barriers such as the unconscious biases, prejudices and how to manage these
- Lifting of competencies: Developing HR and management and culture carriers
- Process improvements and nudging: Diversity and Inclusion Service Check
- Co-facilitation of employee resource groups
- Prevention and management of discrimination and unwanted behaviour
- Long-term changes: roll-out, evaluation and structure for retention
How do you avoid sexism and offensive behaviour?
The past year has proven to organisations that sexism and offensive behaviour is far more widespread than anyone would have guessed.
If you as an organisation wish to combat an offensive culture and instead support a culture based on safety and inclusion, then Mannaz can advise you from strategy to execution, from developing policies to facilitating workshops.
This is an area where you as an organisation must show both insight, empathy, and professionalism to ensure that potential specific cases are managed, while you uphold a focus on dialogue and cultural change.
A process might include the following elements:
- Mapping phase: Investigation, analysis, and clarifying the culture and potentially offensive behaviour
- Cultural development phase: Developing policies, guidelines, and management and employees
- Retention, evaluation, and follow-up: Evaluating the effort, adjusting actions and structure for follow-up. Build a strategy for a continued focus and progress.
We've created a strong team - you're in professional hands
At Mannaz we have assembled an experienced and insightful team of consultants, who can guide and support organisations and leaders through a process that leads to a stronger culture based on more inclusion, diversity and improved gender balances.
CEO at Mannaz, Marianne Egelund Siig, has worked as a counsellor for both Danish and international corporations with an emphasis on gender equality, diversity, and inclusion for several years.
With a number of skilled consultants, who have great experience within the area, she ensures that you receive competent and insightful counselling in creating a more gender-balanced, diverse, and inclusive organisation and corporation.
Strategic partnerships
Ennova
Mannaz has entered a strategic partnership with Ennova, who are leading experts in the Nordic region in conducting employee, customer and management surveys.
Mannaz and Ennova have in collaboration created a unique report-format based on best practice in EU, when it comes to revealing sexism and offensive behaviour in the workplace. In this way organisations ensure a targeted process that leads towards the end goal and a more safe and inclusive culture.
UN Global Compact Network Denmark
UN Global Compact Network Denmark is a lighthouse in the battle for human rights, diversity and the environment, and their 10 universal principles are both supported and executed at Mannaz.
It is therefore with great joy and pride that we in Mannaz have established a strategic collaboration with UN Global Compact Network Denmark. The UN programme Target Gender Equality is a turning point in a much broader objective to contribute to the equality, diversity, and inclusion agenda. Mannaz will, in cooperation with UN Global Compact Denmark, offer programmes and so add to the strong agenda of UN Global Compact with a number of Mannaz’s core capabilities such as competency development and counselling. This way, we at Mannaz can utilise our knowledge and experience in both a Danish and an international context for the common good.
Anja Rose, Senior Director, Leadership & Inclusion, Vestas:
“We have worked with Christina Lundsgaard Ottsen from Mannaz on our talent programs across functions and regions in Vestas, where she has provided training in inclusive leadership for several hundred participants. Christina excels especially by being able to take professional material and make it concrete and operationalizable for our current and future leaders at entry- as well as senior level. We have both been satisfied and grateful for the energy Christina has provided to one of the greatest opportunities we face: securing future inclusion as a cornerstone of our leadership DNA. ”
“We have worked with Christina Lundsgaard Ottsen from Mannaz on our talent programs across functions and regions in Vestas, where she has provided training in inclusive leadership for several hundred participants.
Christina excels especially by being able to take professional material and make it concrete and operationalizable for our current and future leaders at entry- as well as senior level.
We have both been satisfied and grateful for the energy Christina has provided to one of the greatest opportunities we face: securing future inclusion as a cornerstone of our leadership DNA.”
Marianne Egelund Siig
CEO and expert within gender equality, diversity, and inclusion.
Marianne has over decades worked professionally with gender equality, diversity, and inclusion. She has created great value within these areas in her positions as Head of Diversity and Inclusion in Nordea, as a member of advisory boards, as a speaker at conferences and academic seminars, as a participant in panel debates, as partner for several think tanks and as a part of the steering committee for CBS’s Diversity and Difference Platform.
Additionally, Marianne has for several years written for Berlingske Business and Point of View International about management, gender equality, and diversity. Read some of Marianne’s inspiring articles here.
Contact Marianne at mes@mannaz.com or +45 4517 6000
Christina Lundsgaard Ottsen
Management consultant, psychologist, PhD, researcher and author.
Christina is a highly skilled equity, diversity and inclusion expert (ED&I) with deep knowledge of the psychological mechanisms behind cognitive bias. She facilitates decision-making and sustainable development in organisations through increased cultural awareness and collaboration. Christina is the author of ‘Biasbevidst ledelse’ (Bias Conscious Leadership).
As a trained cognitive psychologist with a ph.d. in cross-cultural diversity she joined Mannaz after 10 years of research at Qatar University and Aarhus University with leadership consulting on the side. Since 2008 she has worked strategically with diversity and inclusive leadership in both Scandinavia and the Middle East to raise the quality of decision-making processes and strengthen sustainable development.
Contact Christina cot@mannaz.com or +45 2682 8885
Lars Nellemann
Management consultant, Ph.d. and author. Expert in diversity.
Lars Nellemann has with his Ph.d in diversity and with his work for the Danish Institute for Human Rights and CABI been a part of placing diversity and inclusion on the organisational and managerial agenda in Denmark. Furthermore, he authored the book: “Diversity in the workplace: when we are equal, but not the same”. Lars has in cooperation with companies including ISS, TDC, Falck, Nykredit and Nordea been a part of creating specific methods and approaches for working strategically and systematically with diversity in relation to gender, age, ethnicity, religion, disability, and sexual orientation.
Contact Lars at lne@mannaz.com or +45 5139 6043
Berit Kristine Bøggild
Client Director, cand.merc. and expert in change management, tranformation management and inclusive management.
Berit contributes to creating change through involvement. By working with both management, informal leaders, and the broad scope of the organisation, Berit supports a cultural change. She is preoccupied with what is necessary in each organisation in order to enforce change and succeed in creating a momentum, so that organisations can achieve real changes in behaviour. Berit works with management of both organisational development and innovation with emphasis on creating space for the necessary input and feedback to develop individuals, organisations, and products/solutions. She has worked both internally and as an external consultant in private companies and public organisations with developing and implementing change, and so ensuring that both leaders and employees is able to recognise themselves in the new strategic direction.
Contact Berit at bkb@mannaz.com or +45 2295 0151
Stuart Schofield
Client Director, consultant and authorised occupational psychologist.
Stuart Schofield is an occupational psychologist with 25 years experience in leadership development for some of the world’s largest organisations. He has evaluated, coached and developed leaders from a broad spectrum of cultures, and he has through a significant part of his carreer lived and worked in Asia. Stuart is primarily preoccupied with how cultures can be transformed, and how trust and coorperation can be created and maintained in teams with great diversity – two challenges that are equally relevant today, if not even more so, now that distance management and working from home has become the new normal.
Contact Stuart on ssc@mannaz.com or +44 7990 036110
Joakim Eriksson
Seniorconsultant, expert in personal development and transformational processes.
Joakim has worked with cultural change and transformational processes in many different businesses and industries both as a consultant and in previous management roles. Through his career he has worked in several countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia and Joakim therefore has first hand experience of issues related to diversity and inclusion. As a consultant, Joakim especially focuses on the ability of the leader to work with personal development, as this is often an essential part of an organisational transformation. When Joakim helps organisations improve diversity and inclusion, he helps leaders and teams to increase their consciousness of their own biases, and how they can practically implement behavioural changes.
Contact Joakim at jer@mannaz.com or +46 735 286 071
Dorte Spiegelhauer
Client Director, cand.merc., EMCC-certified coach and expert in transformational leadership.
Dorte contributes to releasing the significant potential that occurs when teams, management teams, and organisation are diverse. She emphasises increasing innovation and vigour through conscious leadership of diverse teams with, for example, different competencies, backgrounds, or perspectives. The objective is improved decision-making and faster transformation through flexible management of complex issues and a security that ensures that mistakes, dissatisfaction and disagreement are caught in the early stages, and are then utilised for shared learning and progress rather than becoming a complicated crisis. Dorte works with the development of both the individual leader and management teams and their ability to create diverse and including organisations.
Contact Dorte at dsp@mannaz.com or +45 5139 6062