The XX Factor: women in the boardroom

ALTHOUGH the remnants of any philosophical arguments about women’s place in the boardroom have long gone, the reality is yet to catch up, with female directors almost always outnumbered around the boardroom table.

“There is no silver bullet to remove gender imbalance in the boardroom,” said Sue Richardson of KPMG, though the government has shouted loudly that the number of women in senior positions is on the up.

Heather Jackson, founder of An Inspirational Journey, which supports organisations to address the imbalance of talent at the top as well as The Balanced Business Conference, said: “The government want to see results at the top and are disregarding the pipeline.”

She said that the key to a balanced board is getting an ethos of diversity throughout a company, from top to bottom, and these figures won’t change any time soon if companies don’t start looking at the progression of middle management.

“It is not about replacing great men with average women,” she said.”It is about replacing some men with the best men and women for the job. Women alone aren’t the answer, it’s about balance.”

Sue Richardson, a director at KPMG who leads its transaction services enterprise team said the issue of imbalance wasn’t going to be resolved overnight, but that it was essential for boards to realise that being diverse will benefit their performance in the short and long term.

She said: “If everyone on a board is thinking in the same way, you aren’t challenged. The male/female issue is one of the more visible signifiers of diversity of thought. We need to have people of different backgrounds, culture, and different experiences on boards.”

Anna Beaumont of law firm gunnercooke was the first new partner appointed at the company. She is a corporate lawyer specialising in listed businesses, and medium to large firms, and became chief executive of gunnercooke in September last year.

She said: “The FTSE 100 will lead the diversification of boards and others will follow. Over the past 10 years diversity has increasingly been recognised as a business strength and a diverse culture on boards reflects the way that their clients and customers are operating as well.”

Last October, Minister for Women and Equalities Nicky Morgan lauded the progress in the FTSE 350, with 550 women being appointed to boards since 2011.

They have also praised the increase of women in the FTSE 100 boards to 26%. Figures from the Professional Boards Forum however have suggested that only 9.6% of boardrooms consist of female executive directors – though this is up from 5.5% in 2011.

It’s looking even worse for the FTSE 250, where only 5.2% female executive directors.

“The problem is that women don’t ride fast enough through the pipeline. The legal sector has been especially criticised for losing female talent, and failing to provide an environment that supports women reaching the top positions in firms. There is still a long way to go,” Ms Beaumont said.

She added: “It’s a case of sharing best practice between businesses.. It’s also important to analyse where and when this talent is lost at present and to initiate wholescale cultural change to retain it.”

Some of these issues link back to confidence – a divisive subject among the women we spoke to.

Ms Jackson of An Inspirational Journey said: “Women, in comparison to men, do have confidence issues – if you don’t have confidence in yourself, how can you expect to perform in business.

“There is fatigue on this issue but we, as women, need to stand up and be counted, and not be fearful of failure.

“It’s no surprise we aren’t paid as well as men, we don’t know what we’re worth and haven’t got the confidence to negotiate for what we want.”

 Sue Richardson from KPMG looked at it a different way. She said: “You do have to make your voice heard, and shouting loud is an easy way to do that – and that is something that women don’t necessarily feel comfortable with doing, but the same can be said of some men.

“I don’t think it’s a confidence issue – shouting about how good you are isn’t about confidence. You can be confident in your job, many women work hard and assume that will be noticed and rewarded.

“We need to find a way that is comfortable for the individual to articulate what they want for their career – we need to communicate, but not necessarily by being loud about it, because people making decisions aren’t mind readers.”

It has been suggested that one way to overcome this is through the introduction of quotas, forcing companies to have a certain ratio of men and women.

Ms Jackson said: “I absolutely believe that quotas are reactive, and targets are proactive. Quotas are government-led, and let’s be honest, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

“We need behaviourally, ethically as well as financially to find and recruit the best people for the job, be they men or women.

“It’s no longer an equality issue, it’s a business performance issue. Are we doing the best for business if we aren’t building the best teams we can have? A graduate wouldn’t want to work in a company or for a board that is lacking in diversity and so we stem the flow of talent into our companies.”

The response against quotas has been overwhelming so far in the Women in Business series, with reactions ranging from distrust to outright dislike, and last year, Lord Davies, chair of the women on boards review, said that “quotas are dead.” He did however say that “the threat of quotas has been a very interesting tool” sparking debate on the subject across the sectors.

“I totally disagree with quotas,” said Ms Richardson of KPMG. “Imposing them would have a demotivating impact on a huge proportion of the work force. What quotas are doing are applying a wrong to rectify another wrong.”

She added: “They disregard merit and talent – quotas are just another form of prejudice and exclusion. They are a quick fix, when what is needed is a fundamental change in mindset and behaviour.”

Targets were looked upon with a more forgiving eye, and women and equalities minister Nicky Morgan announced the launch of a review, recommending that companies aim for 33% female representation on boards by 2020.

Ms Richardson said: “Targets are a much better approach, as they force you to really think about the decision you’ve made, the criteria you’ve used and the pool of people you’ve drawn from. It’s human nature to recruit and promote people who are similar to yourself, the idea of unconscious bias, but we can’t just wander blind into the recruitment process or it is inevitable our boards will end up uniform.”