TED Talks | Halla Tomasdottir | Co-founder Audur Capital

On October 24th, October 1975, the women of Iceland took the day off. Moms, housekeepers, business women, bank clerks all took the day off, with 30,000 women marking downtown in Reykjavik.

Iceland now leads the world in 2009 and 2010 on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Report.

Icelandic financier Halla Tomasdottir was one of two women to write a public warning to the Icelandic prime minister highlighting the dangers posed by (male ) bankers in the country. Global studies have now confirmed that those global financial firms with more women — BNP Paribas, for example with 39% female managers — have fared better in the financial crisis.

Today her TED Talk is the first one released as part of the new TED Women forum. In it Tomasdottir argues that there is such a thing as feminine values and she believes that a mix of them is required in any successful, stable business and especially ones in the financial sector or other channels where a lot of people can feel the downside of too much testosterone.