Women still largely locked out of boardroom
How much progress have we really made for women? writes Jo Doolan.
‘‘Women should go home, look after their children, cook their husbands’ dinners, empty the slops, and generally attend to the domestic affairs for which nature designed them; they should give up meddling in masculine concerns of which they are profoundly ignorant.’’ Wellington resident Henry Wright (1902) How much progress have we made since Kate Sheppard, our most prominent suffragette, fought to win New Zealand women the right to vote in 1893? Insufficient, according to the YWCA, which last month launched a campaign to have Sheppard’s face removed from our $10 note as part of its fight for gender pay equality. It has asked the Reserve Bank to replace Sheppard’s image with that of a ‘‘more fitting’’ man as, for every $10 earned by a man, a woman earns only $9. The YWCA has created a $9 note ‘‘especially for women in New Zealand’’ to raise awareness of the pay gap between women and men.
We are proud of New Zealand’s place in history, leading the world on universal suffrage and our stance on homosexual law reform. Yet when it comes to equal opportunity in the boardroom, women are largely locked out. According to a 2012 Human Rights Commission report, only 14.75 per cent of directors of the top 100 NZX companies are women. As leading Kiwi businesswoman Diane Foreman puts it, progress in getting women on to boards is ‘‘glacial’’. Not only is the pool of available women small, but companies tend to appoint the same small group of women. ‘‘We need different women around the table,’’ she said. ‘‘We are frozen out, not accepted or wanted.’’
Given our failure to grasp the impact of this on our economic wellbeing, should we petition Parliament to demand quotas? Should we populate boards with women regardless of their skills? Clearly these are not viable options but real money is being left on the table if we opt for the status quo. Credit Suisse reviewed the returns for 2360 companies worldwide and found over a sixyear period, companies with women on their boards achieved a higher return that averaged 4 per cent. If you were offered a return on equity of 16 per cent or 12 per cent, you would opt for the higher figure, especially if it were the average return over six years. Among Fortune 500 companies those with the highest representation of women board directors outperformed those with the least.
This is not all about men closing ranks but some female leaders, who have got through that boardroom door, are holding out their elbows so others cannot walk through. There are great organisations promoting change within New Zealand and clear examples of companies providing leadership. Yet we should be leading the world, not dragging behind. Unless there is accelerated change, we will all be guilty of negatively impacting our economic future. Joanna Doolan is a partner with EY the views expressed are her own and do not necessarily represent those of EY joanna.doolan@nz.ey.com