In May 2010, a New York jury ordered Novartis to pay $250m in punitive damages to nearly 6,000 current and former female employees of its US pharmaceuticals division, in what plaintiffs’ lawyers claimed at the time was the largest gender discrimination case in the country....Now, Novartis is being hailed as a pioneer for an executive leadership development programme targeted exclusively at women that experts say is a milestone in its field...What was particularly unusual – apart from the single-sex composition – is the scheme’s breadth. Spread over a year, the programme involved 10 days of group sessions, in three blocks. Participants engaged not just in conventional team building exercises, but much deeper and wider development modules. Those included leadership skills, from strictly personal, to leading others, to leading a business. There was also an unusually close involvement with top management...Candidates were nominated by their managers amid a tough selection procedure. Initially, Novartis acknowledges, there were mixed feelings about participating in an all female group. Some had concerns the initiative might be interpreted primarily as political correctness. Others feared resentment among non-selected colleagues.