Deloitte launches "Women in the boardroom: Global perspective" report |
New York, 24 January 2011–While fulfilling increased regulatory requirements continues to preoccupy corporate boardrooms, the ongoing disparity between the relative proportion of female and male board members is also a rising concern—for organizations as well as legislators. In dealing with the issue, a number of countries around the world have introduced legislation, or are in various stages of talking about doing so, to require quotas—or minimum numbers of women—to serve on publicly listed companies’ boards of directors.
A new Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) report from the Deloitte Global Center for Corporate Governance, "Women in the boardroom: A global perspective," examines the legislative efforts in this area across 12* countries and compares the current percentage of women on boards around the world.
“From a corporate governance perspective, including more individuals with different backgrounds on boards of directors could improve boards’ performance,” said Dan Konigsburg, Leader, Deloitte Global Center for Corporate Governance, DTTL. “In this context, the specific question of quotas for women on boards has arisen over the past few years. With this report, we aim to shed light on the state of play in regulation of quotas for women on corporate boards worldwide. Our goal is to follow these developments in the coming months and years to further our understanding of leading practices.”
To make sense of the myriad viewpoints on how organizations can encourage more points of view in the boardroom, the Deloitte Global Center for Corporate Governance report incorporates unique views from three prominent directors from around the world. Each director shares her thoughts on best practices for increasing boardroom diversity as well as the effectiveness of quotas.
Highlights from their comments include:
- “When it comes to selection of a new board member, we need to add the best qualified person…. Mandates and quotas may drive compliance, but they will not drive genuine commitment. The more we focus on specific areas of expertise versus relationships of comfort, the more likely we are to broaden the available pool and include women.”
Jane Shaw, Director of Intel, Chairman of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee; Director, McKesson Corporation (U.S.) - “The introduction of quotas for female board representation could bring us a fast and very large step forward…. If we could introduce a national data bank that includes the data and qualifications of all [highly qualified women in Germany], then Germany could provide the necessary pool of resources to companies and headhunters, which could use them in their selection process.”
Jella Benner-Heinacher, Managing Director, DSW (Deutsche Schutzvereinigung fur Wertpapierbesitz) - “Companies need to have a corporate culture which encourages a sustained pool of diverse talent from the ground level … a comprehensive strategy for talent development and retention which encourages and maintains diversity. This strategy, together with a gender balance target range, should be one of the CEO’s performance goals.”
Irene Lee, Non-Executive Director for a number of companies including QBE Insurance Limited and Cathay Pacific Airways Limited
Download and view the full report (PDF) on the Center for Corporate Governance site.
*Countries profiled: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, United Kingdom, United States
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Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee, and its network of member firms, each of which is a legally separate and independent entity. Please see www.deloitte.com/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited and its member firms.