Women on Boards: What should Boards and Governments do?

The Maureen Bickley Centre for Women in Leadership is hosting a roundtable with senior managers and board members on this issue in the first week of May. What advice should be given to Boards and to the Government if we are serious about increasing the number of women on corporate, not for profit and government boards?

There has been considerable press in Australia over the past few months regarding the lack of women on the country’s top listed boards. The 2008 Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) Census (the full report is available at the EOWA website) showed that the very modest gains that had been made were disappearing. Perhaps even more disturbing is the data from Western Australia where women comprise 2% of board positions!!!

Maybe it’s not surprising given the action by other countries such as Norway, Spain, France, the UK and the US that we are starting to focus on women’s underrepresentation at senior and board level. The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) announced in a media release last December that it intended to expand its corporate governance principles so that organisations listed on the ASX would be required to report on the diversity composition of their board in their annual reports and any action they are taken to improve women’s representation.

A further media release (available here) on 18 April this year detailed the establishment of a leadership group of male CEOs and Chairmen who have committed to using their collective influence and personal commitment to progress gender equality in the Australian corporate sector. The CEOs and Chairmen are drawn from a wide range of Australian companies and are working with the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick. The group was formed in response to the ASX Corporate Governance Council recommendations on diversity and comprises:

* Glen Boreham, Managing Director, IBM Australia and New Zealand

* Gordon Cairns, Non-Executive Director, Westpac and Origin Energy Ltd

* Robert Elstone, Managing Director and CEO, Australian Securities Exchange

* Stephen Fitzgerald, Co-CEO and Managing Director, Goldman Sachs JBWere

* Michael Luscombe, Managing Director and CEO, Woolworths Ltd

* Kevin McCann, Chair, non-Executive Director of various Boards including Origin Energy Ltd, Macquarie Bank Ltd and Australian Institute of Company Directors

* Stephen Roberts, CEO of the Citi Institutional Clients Group, Australia and New Zealand

* Giam Swiegers, CEO, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Australia

* David Thodey, Managing Director and CEO, Telstra Ltd.

Coinciding with the ASX focus on women on boards is the newly launched Australian Institute of Company Directors mentoring program for women aspiring to board appointments. The initial twelve month program will involve 56 chairmen and senior directors who have agreed to mentor 63 women with an aim of helping the women connect with key business leaders and to learn more about how boards operate and how new board members are selected. More information including the list of mentors is available at the AICD website.

These initiatives are great to see but we do wonder whether is it is a case of women needing further support to ensure that they are board ready or is it that we have plenty of women who would relish the opportunity to become a board member and they are in fact ‘bored – and ready’ for this next challenge? What do you think?

For reports and thought-provoking research on women on boards see:

* Cranfield University’s Centre for International Leaders for reports on the UK, including 100 Women to Watch. Available on-line at the Cranfield University website.

* Catalyst for reports on the US and Canada.

* European Professional Women’s Network

Some interesting books on women on boards:

Doug Branson who is a Visiting Professor at the University of Washington and also teaches Corporate Governance at the University of Melbourne has written two books on this issue:

No Seat at the Table – How Governance and Law Keep Women Off Boards of Directors (NYU Press)

The Last Male Bastion - Gender and the CEO Suite at America's Public Companies (Routledge).


Another book is Women On Corporate Boards Of Directors: International Research and Practice
edited by Susan Vinicome and Val Singh at the International Centre for Women Leaders, Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield University, UK; Ronald J. Burke at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada; Diana Bilimoria at Case Western Reserve University, US and Morten Huse at the Norwegian School of Management, Norway.

(Image sources: playtable.jp and e-elgar.co.uk)

New Books and Recent Reports

Some newly published books and recently released reports have caught our eyes at the Maureen Bickley Centre...

New Books
I was delighted to see that Fremantle Arts Centre Press has just published Lekkie Hopkins (a colleague from my previous university) and Lynn Roarty’s book about Pat Giles.


Pat Giles is known to many in Australia for her commitment to improving the lives of the disadvantaged. Among her many contributions and achievements she was elected as an Australian Labour Party Senator a role she held for twelve years. She was also an organiser with the Hospital Employees Union of Western Australia, a founding member and inaugural convener of the Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL) in Western Australia, the first woman on the executive of the West Australian Trades and Labour Council, Chairperson of the first Australian Council of Trade Unions Women's Committee and completed three terms as President of the International Alliance of Women.

Recently Released Reports
Three recently released reports caught our attention. The first is Changing Cultures Changing Attitudes - A National Survey on Community Attitudes to Violence Against Women released on April 7, 2010 by the Hon Tanya Plibersek, MP, Federal Minister for the Status of Women. Although the report noted some gains in that attitudes about violence against women are changing for the better significant challenges remain and violence against women remains a major issue. The full report is available here. I also think we need more research to show the impact of violence on women’s work and their careers. Let us know if you are aware of research being undertaken in this area or any relevant reports that have been released.

A second major report is Women in Science in Australia: Maximising Productivity, Diversity and Innovation by Professor Sharon Bell which was released by the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies in October 2009. The report shows that women’s progress in science over the past 15 years has stalled despite improvements in their participation rates at undergraduate and post graduate levels. The report highlighted persistent structural barriers to women in senior positions in science and technology, female professional scientists earning less than their male counterparts and harassment and discrimination continue to be major issues. The full report is available through the FAST website. This report is particularly timely given Australia’s focus on skill and labour shortages. However, one wonders how many research organisations and funding agencies will rise to the author’s challenge to change their practices including the need for improved flexibility and a range of career paths that have as a central focus the attraction and retention of women. It will be an interesting space to monitor for change!!

The third report that captured our attention (perhaps no surprise we are located in a graduate school that has an MBA as one of its major programs) was Catalyst’s report Pipeline’s Broken Promises - a second report from their longitudinal project, The Promise of Future Leadership: A Research Program on Highly Talented Employees in the Pipeline.

The project surveys graduates of leading business schools in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia and highlights the differences in women's and men's career experiences and satisfaction. It challenges the myth that women just haven’t been in the pipeline long enough and that this is what explains their absence in senior roles and the persistence of the gender pay gap. Of concern for women is that despite women’s increased participation in education and employment inequality remains entrenched and that women from elite MBA programs lagged men in terms of career advancement and salary from their first appointment following graduation. Perhaps not surprisingly women were also less satisfied with their careers. The full report is available from the Catalyst website. What are your thoughts on how organisations and for that matter universities teaching MBA programs might address this issue of gender inequality?

Welcome to The Bickley Blog

Welcome to The Bickley Blog! We hope that you will enjoy reading about the activities of the Maureen Bickley Centre for Women in Leadership as well as the things that inspire and encourage us, and what continues to frustrate regarding women’s representation in leadership roles, in decision making and in positions of influence.