The panel discussion was held at Tampa Bay History Center ahead of the 2018 Honda NHL All-Star Game, which will be played at Amalie Arena on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVA Sports).
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Speaking about studies by several companies, Heidi Browning, NHL executive vice president and chief marketing officer, said gender diversity in the workplace correlates to profitability and value creation, and got a round of applause.
"They showed that there was a 55 percent lift in operational results when you have more women in the workplace," Browning said. "They showed that there's a 47 percent lift in return on equity when there are women in the workplace. And these numbers actually got higher [with] the more women that were in senior roles."
Browning sat on the panel alongside Elizabeth Frazier, executive director of the Tampa Bay Lightning Foundation and the Lightning's senior vice president of philanthropy and community initiatives. Milano could not attend the event, as she had done last year when it was held at the 2017 All-Star Game in Los Angeles, because the actress had a filming commitment.
Browning posed a question that was taken up in another study. "What if we reimagined the world?" she said. "And what if women and men participated equally in our global economy, what would happen? They did all the math and here's what the answer was: If women and men participated equally in the global economy, we would increase the GDP (gross domestic product) by $12 trillion.
"This is why women matter and this is why we have to have these conversations with ourselves, with our partners, in our workforce, with our friends. We need to start educating."