Diversity council helps to raise female representation

The number of women in boardrooms across Canada is slowly growing as corporate leaders are increasingly urged to improve diversity within their director ranks.

The results have been encouraging, says Pamela Jeffery, founder of the Canadian Board Diversity Council, and exactly how much progress has been made will become more clear next month when the organization releases its 2015 annual report card reviewing the board makeup of FP500 companies.

Last year’s report revealed the biggest increase — by percentage — of women on FP500 boards; 17.1 per cent, compared to 15.6 per cent in 2013 and 14.4 per cent in 2012. The Council’s mission is to educate companies on board diversity through “a made- inCanada” approach that includes working with executives on corporate governance education and developing prospective directors through its Get on Board program.

Calgary-based agricultural supplier Agrium, a sponsor of the Council and its initiatives, has taken the message to heart, growing the proportion of women on its board to 25 per cent, says vicepresident Michael Webb, the company’s head of human resources.

“For any publicly traded company, there’s a lot of data that supports the fact that diverse boards are more effective ... and it’s just becoming a very, very important thing for shareholders and the public and they want to see organizations taking proactive measures as it relates to that,” said Webb.

“Recruiting board directors can be and often is a very long drawn out process. So dedicating resources early and up front are very, very important.”

Jeffery, who created the 17,000-member Women’s Executive Network, was asked by the federal government in 2008 to make a series of strategy recommendations to increase female representation on Canadian corporate boards.

That request spawned the Canadian Board Diversity Council a year later.

“The late minister (Jim) Flaherty was the first finance minister to write in the federal budget that the lack of women on Canadian corporate boards was an economic issue and he was really articulating research that has been done and continues to be done,” said Jeffery.

“There’s a significant statistical relationship between more diverse leadership in executive officer roles and corporate directors and better financial performance.”

Besides its Get on Board education program, the Diversity 50 initiative connects corporate directors with potential new directors.

A group of CEOs across the country — including Ryan Kubik, of Canadian Oil Sands, and Steve Williams, of Suncor Energy, in Calgary — are backing the initiative that identifies men and women who are considered board-ready based on their knowledge, skills and behaviour.

A list is released every year that has resulted in corporate board appointments, said Jeffery.

Paul Godfrey, president and chief executive of Postmedia Network, which owns the Calgary Herald, is also a member of the Diversity 50 CEOs group.

While the composition of corporate boards is evolving, it’s a particularly slower process in the mining and oil and gas sectors as the Council’s report last year showed just 9.7 per cent of women hold- ing board seats in that industry, up from 9 per cent in 2013 and 7.7 per cent in 2012.

A report last month by the Alberta Securities Commission and the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business found the proportion of women on corporate boards in Alberta is less than half the national average, at 6.6 per cent, though the numbers are improving.

The same report showed 22 per cent of all new board directors named to Alberta companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange this year were women.

Jeffery said boards have traditionally recruited directors from within their own networks, where women have not featured prominently, particularly in male-dominated industries such as mining and oil and gas.

“The mining, oil and gas, industry continues to recruit for the most part male directors who have been CEOs in oil and gas companies,” she said.

Jeffery encourages companies to look beyond their own industry to tap into experience and best practices in other industries.

Pamela Jeffery, founder of the Canadian Board Diversity Council, says boards have traditionally recruited directors from within their own circle where they are fewer women, such as in mining and oil and gas.