In response to the Harvard Business Review blog posting, "Why Stock Price Drops When Women Join the Board [2]," NCRW President Linda Basch submitted the following comment:
Implying that companies rely on women to provide politically-correct ratios rather than valuable skills and approaches is unsupported by evidence. As we found in our report, "Women in Fund Management [3]" , board diversity usually improves stock performance. But we also found that bias can make it difficult for women investment managers to attract investors (Journal of Financial Research XXVI (1), 1-18.). Still, Catalyst [4], Michel Ferrary at Ceram Business School [5] and others show that women boost the bottom line despite bias. Hedge Fund Research Inc. found that women-owned funds delivered better annual returns [6] than a broader composite of hedge funds over a ten year period. In an economy in need of innovative thinking and new strategic directions, gender bias is something we simply can't afford.
