Women leaders needed

Canada’s biggest companies and organizations are worth trillions of dollars and impact the lives of virtually everyone in the country by creating wealth, enterprises and institutions that fuel our growth. As such, the quality of leadership in the corner offices and boardrooms cannot be overstated.

The Business Council of Canada and the Institute of Corporate Directors together represent about 13,000 members from leading companies and organizations and as we mark International Women’s Day we believe it’s important for all of us to try and take stock of where we are and what we can do.

Indeed, International Women’s Day may resonate with more people this year as it follows unprecedented global attention on women’s rights, equality and justice, which has ramped up with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

Equal representation between men and women is an important issue that corporate Canada’s been addressing for a number of years. And while we’ve made some progress there’s still more to do to create corporate cultures our children will be proud to work with that are safe, respectful and that pay equitably and fairly.

Simply put, we need access to all of the leadership talent that Canada has to offer. Unfortunately, the most recent results regarding gender diversity on boards and in senior management suggest that, collectively, we’re not doing a particularly good job of this. The latest diversity disclosure results from the Ontario Securities Commission show some progress with 61 per cent of all public companies featuring at least one woman on their board. That compares with less than 50 per cent two years ago. However, women fill only 14 per cent of the board positions on all listed companies in the country. And according to Catalyst Canada, only seven of the 249 companies listed on the TSX’s main index have female CEOs.

This should concern our companies. First, because they are missing out in a global race for talent and second, because continued inaction may change the conversations — and obligations — in Canada that are now focused on voluntary diversity to ones concentrated instead around mandatory diversity. We know that corporate Canada

There is a growing body of research that suggests that more diverse management teams outperform less diverse counterparts and achieve higher returns in the long term. In just one example, a research study by Credit Suisse following the 2008 economic crash found that companies with more gender balanced boards proved to be more stable. Diverse leadership also enables innovation by translating new thinking into the marketplace. A recent study from the Canadian Foundation for Governance Research shows that companies with more women on their boards