Coalition of Investors Calls for Gender Diverse Leadership
By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
Despite a global movement to increase the number of women in leadership, a new report shows that, in the past year, women in the boardroom have only increased by .2%. This is not nearly enough for the improvement in governance diversity that many investors are calling for.
“Women on Boards,” a statistical review performed by Governance Results International, counted female representation on boards of directors, and showed little change in the number of women in leadership roles across the globe.
Julie Gorte, Pax World’s Senior VP for Sustainable Investing said, “Women are under represented on boards. They are better represented now than they have been previously, but the needle hasn’t moved far.”
According to the report,
“Since we first started tracking women on boards in March 2009, there has been a modest overall increase in the number of women represented on corporate boards. The aggregate percentage of women directors serving on boards of over 4,200 companies covered by GMI globally has increased from 9.2% to 9.4%.”
Gorte said the review confirmed what she had already believed about the numbers of women leading companies across the globe. “I wasn’t surprised in the least at the results,” she said.
A Coalition for Gender Balance Action
Gorte’s company, Pax World, is one of the leaders of a coalition of several other investors, including Calvert and Walden Asset Management, to call on the world’s companies to increase the number of women in corporate leadership. “Anything we can do to increase diversity in senior leadership is important,” she said.
The coalition, which manages a total of over US $73 billion in assets, called on companies across the world to increase the representation of qualified women on boards of directors and in senior management. Gorte said, “This is about good governance, and governance is a key issue for investors. A lot of evidence shows that diversity at the board level, especially gender diversity, improves governance and accountability.
She explained, “We are always looking for well governed enterprises, and accountability is the purpose of a board of directors.”
Next Steps for Success
According to Gorte, the coalition is still working to get in touch with a few companies that have an especially unsatisfactory number of female directors. The next steps, she said, will be to track the outcomes of the coalition’s work.
She also said that it is too soon to set benchmarks for success. She explained, “Boards don’t turn over very often. Current numbers are so low and higher turnover is not predicted, so that the best thing we can do at this point is raise awareness.”
Personally, she said, “If we saw a 5% increase of women on boards, I’d be happy, but it’s not an official goal.”
And, Gorte said, Pax World is working on a further study, discussing the value of gender diverse leadership.
