The appointments have increased the proportion of women directors on ASX 200 boards from 8.3 per cent to 11.9 per cent since 2009, but the figures indicate there is still much to be done. A total of 77 boards of ASX 200 companies still do not have any female directors. Despite the progress, Australia remains in a poor light internationally when compared with similar jurisdictions according to the Lord Davies Review of UK FTSE Boards published in February this year. In the US, for example, 11.4 per cent of board seats are held by women; in Canada it’s 11.3 per cent. The leading international examples are the Scandinavian countries, especially Norway where legislated quotas and the threat of delisting have lifted the percentage of female directors to 44.2 per cent.
“The numbers speak for themselves,” says non-executive director Kate Spargo whose boards include Australian Unity Limited, Pacific Hydro Pty Ltd and Sonic Healthcare Limited. “There has definitely been a response by companies to try to find suitable women. I think the experience has been a bit of a revelation to some traditional, all-male boards.”
[breakoutbox][breakoutbox_title]Helping women get ‘board ready'[/breakoutbox_title][breakoutbox_excerpt]With the advent of the changes to the ASX guidelines, the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) implemented a mentoring program in 2010 to identify, assist and promote women into senior executive roles and ASX 200 board seats.[/breakoutbox_excerpt][breakoutbox_content]With the advent of the changes to the ASX guidelines, the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) implemented a mentoring program in 2010 to identify, assist and promote women into senior executive roles and ASX 200 board seats.
The second tranche of mentees to the AICD program were approved in April this year, with 83 women accepted out of 342 applications nationally. The women are being mentored by some of the most prominent chairmen in the corporate boardroom including David Gonski (CCA), Graham Bradley (HSBC Bank), Peter Smedley (OneSteel) and Bob Every (Wesfarmers).
Under a separate program run by the Business Council of Australia, CEOs mentored leading female c-suite executives for more senior roles and board positions. The pilot program was run in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Human Resources (AHRI).[/breakoutbox_content][/breakoutbox]
The great gender debate
The catalyst for change dates to September 2009 when speakers at the biannual conference held by advocacy group Women on Boards called for the introduction of quotas to improve the low representation of female directors on ASX 200 boards.
The call to action stimulated heated debate, with participants divided roughly into two camps: those who thought it was time for regulated change, and those who were concerned that quotas meant women would not be appointed on merit.
Within weeks, the ASX Corporate Governance Council announced impending changes to its Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations, a set of guidelines which requires listed companies to report against compliance voluntarily under what’s called an ‘if not, why not?’ regime. The amendments to the guidelines, which took effect in January this year, state that boards should disclose in the annual report what measurable objectives for achieving gender diversity have been set by the board in accordance with the (company’s) diversity policy and what progress is being made towards achieving those goals. Companies should also disclose in the annual report the proportion of female employees in the whole organisation, women in senior executive positions and women on the board.
“The ASX Corporate Governance guidelines had an effect before they came into practice,” says Ruth Medd of Women on Boards. “The threat that if the guidelines didn’t work there might be regulation down the track spurred a large number of ASX directors to start thinking about putting women on their boards. In 2009 there were very few women appointed to ASX 200 boards; in 2010 there were six times as many.”
Women have comprised 31 per cent of new appointments to ASX 200 boards so far this year, according to statistics kept by the Australian Institute of Company Directors, (AICD). Women comprised 25 per cent of all new appointments to ASX 200 boards in 2010, compared to only five per cent in 2009 and eight per cent in 2007 and in 2008.
The cause for change was the threat of sanctions in the form of quotas. “Traditionally there have been very few women on ASX 200 boards and that was the way it was going to be,” says Medd. “The old ways of recruiting directors were entrenched and were going to stay the same unless there was an impetus for change. And that’s basically what the ASX Corporate Governance guidelines achieved by bringing the concept of doing things differently to wider attention.”
