Valuing women in business

The research is clear: more women in leadership adds value.

By CARA JENKIN

Women are edging their way into Australia’s boardrooms and C-suites and although progress appears slow, there is rising optimism that gains achieved at the top will start filtering through to those below.

Data compiled by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) reveals that around a third of board members are women and fewer than one in five boards (18 per cent) have a female chair.

But the agency’s 2022 employer census also found that the proportion of boards with no female members has declined, from 37 per cent in 2014-15 to 22 per cent.

And there are more female chief executives (22 per cent) than there were in 2013-14 (16 per cent), while the proportion of women in key management positions has also increased –from 26 per cent to 35 per cent over the same period.

The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) says the lack of women chairing boards likely reflects the lack of women holding chief executive roles.

It cites a review by research and advocacy group Chief Executive Women that found more than half of ASX 300 company chairs had a career background as a chief executive, but only 11 per cent were women.

Nevertheless, AICD education and policy leadership general manager Louise Petschler says positive change is occurring, as 35.7 per cent of ASX 200 board directors are women, which is a similar proportion to other countries where gender quotas are legislated.

Petschler believes that even just a few years ago, boards were hostile to the idea of having female board members, but now they appreciate the need to embrace diversity.

“Our view is Australia has progressed very well in terms of gender diversity on boards, particularly the big ASX-listed companies,” she says.

When AICD started investigating the issue of boardroom diversity in 2010, just 8 per cent of board seats on ASX 200 companies were held by women.

“That change has happened in not a huge amount of time,” says Petschler. “Investors, particularly institutional investors, and the community understand that having, for example, less than 10 per cent of board seats on our biggest listed companies held by women – that’s clearly not a reflection of the talent pool, the experience and the perspectives that should be sitting around those board tables.

“If you’re a big company of any description and you have an all-white male board of very similar individuals, you’ll find yourself challenged by your customers, by your shareholders and by stakeholders who want, and expect to see, more diverse boards.”

Boards also are recognising the relationship between