Did you know that fewer large Australian companies are run by women than are run by men named John? Just 19 ASX200 companies are run by women as CEO or chair, compared to 85 by men named John, Peter and David. That’s less than ten per cent.
And while the overall number of female board directors is growing, we are actually going backwards with representation at CEO and chairperson level, with the number of women in these leadership roles falling 21% in just a year.
While this is of course bad news for women with strong leadership skills and ambitions, there is now plenty of data to suggest that companies are doing themselves a disservice by failing to ensure their boards are diverse, in gender and in ethnicity.
Female empowerment has always been important for me, which is why I’d like to explore the particular benefits gender diversity can bring to economic performance.