women on boards

Should Women Use Humour in the Boardroom?

Teaser:

Lynne Parker reflects on an article by Daniel Boffey in the Observer newspaper entitled 'Why women's jokes fall flat in the boardroom' which reviews the findings of a study by Dr Judith Baxter, a linguistics expert, about women's behaviour in the boardroom. The study raises questions about how women use humour in the workplace, specifically the boardroom, the ultimate 'boys club' where even some of the women wear trousers.

Editorial:

From the Huffington Post:

If a woman employs the direct, masculine approach to any sort of confrontation in business, in or out of the boardroom, she is more often or not described as 'aggressive' or 'bossy'. Men are more comfortable with a woman flirting her way out of a situation than confronting them.

I've just been quoted in an article by Daniel Boffey in theObserver newspaper yesterday entitled 'Why women's jokes fall flat in the boardroom' which reviews the findings of a study by Dr Judith Baxter, a linguistics expert, about women's behaviour in the boardroom. The study raises questions about how women use humour in the workplace, specifically the boardroom, the ultimate 'boys club' where even some of the women wear trousers.

Having spent the last 10 years listening to and watching nearly 2,000 female comedy acts, and 35 years working in business and the media, I can confirm that women's humour is not always as self-deprecating at Dr Baxter's study would have us believe. I don't profess to be an 'expert' and can only take as I find, but women's humour is evolving.

[...]

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lynne-parker/should-women-use-humour-i_b_1530748.html

Date:

May 21, 2012

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Private equity women come out against quotas

Teaser:

Speakers at the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association’s inaugural Women in Private Equity Forum have come out largely against hiring quotas as a solution to the lack of women working in the industry.

Editorial:

From Financial News:

Panellists including Zeina Bain, a director in leveraged buyouts at the Carlyle Group, and guest speaker Laura Tenison, founder of Jojo Maman Bebe, spoke out against the use of quotas following a European Commission proposal to impose mandatory quotas and a report by Lord Davies in which he called for more female board representation at FTSE 100 companies.

Bain said: “I am against quotas. It is hard enough to be taken seriously as a woman. You put yourself out there when you are working on a deal. If there are quotas in place, [people might say] does she know what she is talking about? Why is she here?”

Tenison said in a speech about her experience as an entrepreneur that she disagreed with quotas, noting that she believed that the hiring process should be dependent solely on achievements and merit. “It just so happens that all the directors [on Jojo Maman Bebe’s board], apart from one, are women, and that is because they are right for the job."

In a straw poll of about 80 attendees, only a handful agreed with the use of quotas.

[...]

Source:

Financial News

URL:

http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2012-05-18/private-equity-women-representation-bvca?mod=sectionheadlines-IB-PE

Date:

May 20, 2012

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Protest Outside Facebook HQ Challenges Pale, Male And Stale Board

Teaser:

The women's rights group UltraViolet organized a demonstration outside of Facebook's New York office to protest the social media company's appointment of an all-white, all-male board ahead of its IPO.

Editorial:

From Forbes:

There was a demonstration outside of Facebook’s New York office on Wednesday, organized by the women’s rights group UltraViolet, to protest the social media giant’s decision to appoint an all-white, all-male board ahead of its IPO. The group attempted to deliver a petition, signed by over 53,000 people, demanding that women be added to the board.

“Facebook is going to launch one of the largest IPO’s in history this summer, a success built largely on the participation of women – 58% of their users are women and the vast majority of sharing on the site is done by women – and yet zero people on the board are women.” said UltraViolet co-founder Shaunna Thomas.

Protesters argued that the decision to appoint an all-male board, was bad for the company and for users. Marie Wilson of the White House Project, an non-profit working to advance women in business, stressed the positive effects of women on boards, “We know the difference women make on boards in terms of long-term thinking that’s needed for the future and the value they bring in terms of what they want when they get on boards.” With the involvement of women, the board would better understand and serve its mostly female users, she argued.

[...]

Source:

Forbes

URL:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/evapereira/2012/04/26/protest-outside-facebook-hq-challenges-pale-male-and-stale-board-video/

Date:

April 27, 2012

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Women on boards: one year on

Submitted by asklar on Sat, 04/14/2012 - 11:58pm

Lord Davies has published the first annual progress report on his ground-breaking review of Women on Boards.

URL:

http://www.bis.gov.uk/news/topstories/2012/Mar/women-on-boards-one-year-on

Discussion Paper - Deutsche Bundesbank: Executive board composition and bank risk taking

Submitted by asklar on Wed, 03/28/2012 - 10:43am

Little is known about how socioeconomic characteristics of executive teams affect corporate governance in banking. Exploiting a unique dataset, we show how age, gender, and education composition of executive teams affect risk taking of financial institutions. First, we establish that age, gender, and education jointly affect the variability of bank performance. Second, we use
difference-in-difference estimations that focus exclusively on mandatory executive retirements and find that younger executive teams increase risk taking, as do board changes that result in a higher proportion of female executives. In contrast, if board changes increase the representation of executives holding Ph.D. degrees, risk taking declines.

URL:

http://www.bundesbank.de/download/volkswirtschaft/dkp/2012/201203dkp.pdf

Catalyst Proposes 25% Women on FP500 Boards by 2017

Teaser:

In a bold move that could transform the composition of Canada’s corporate boardrooms, Catalyst issues a call to action for Canadian corporations to increase the overall proportion of FP500 board seats held by women to 25 percent by 2017. Catalyst is initially supported in this initiative by RBC and Linamar Corporation, who have signed the Catalyst Accord.

Editorial:

From the Catalyst press release:

The Catalyst Accord calls for participating companies to pledge to the agreed objective and submit interim goals to Catalyst, which will be kept confidential. To challenge the assumption that qualified women can’t be found and act on Catalyst research that shows the positive impact of sponsorship on women’s advancement, members of the Catalyst Canada Advisory Board will provide participating companies with a roster of board-ready women who they personally sponsor.

“The Catalyst Accord is more than a call to action—it closes the loop. At its core, it shows a highly focused commitment to increasing board diversity on the part of corporate Canada and it provides the tools to create that change,” said Deborah Gillis, Senior Vice President, Membership & Global Operations, Catalyst. “Not only can corporate Canada address this challenge, as other countries have done, but it can also demonstrate how much it prizes diversity—and smart business practices—by exercising leadership on this issue.”

The Catalyst Accord was created in response to the 2011 Catalyst Census: Financial Post 500 Women Board Directors, just released, which shows that the proportion of women on Canadian boards rose only half a percentage point between 2009 and 2011. Women currently hold just 14.5 percent of board seats in FP500 companies, and 10.3 percent in public companies, the report revealed. Additionally, nearly 40 percent of FP500 companies and over 46 percent of public FP500 companies have zero women serving on their boards.

[...]

Source:

Catalyst (Canada)

URL:

http://www.catalyst.org/press-release/201/catalyst-proposes-25-women-on-fp500-boards-by-2017

Date:

March 8, 2012

Affiliate:

E.U. Considers Quotas for Women in Boardrooms

Teaser:

Frustrated that her previous efforts to get more women into the top echelons of European business have not yielded stronger results, Viviane Reding, the senior justice official in the European Union, was to announce a new effort Monday that could result in legislation requiring that women occupy up to 60 percent of the seats on corporate boards.

Editorial:

From The New York Times:

France and other countries with legally binding quotas have made the most progress in placing women in top business positions, Ms. Reding said during an interview Friday in advance of her announcement. E.U.-wide rules were now needed, she said.

“Personally, I don’t like quotas,” Ms. Reding said. “But I like what the quotas do. Quotas open the way to equality and they break through the glass ceiling.” Countries that have quotas “bring the results,” she said.

[...]

Source:

The New York Times

URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/business/global/eu-considers-quotas-for-women-in-boardrooms.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Date:

March 7, 2012

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Quotas Possible To Get More Women On Boards

Teaser:

The European Commission has moved one step closer to imposing quotas on companies to increase the number of women in boardrooms.

Editorial:

From Sky News:

EC vice-president Viviane Reding launched a three-month debate into the proposal, which could see firms forced to promote more women to executive roles.

"Personally, I am not a great fan of quotas," she said. "However, I like the results they bring."

Dr Reding's comments echo those of Prime Minister David Cameron, who said that while he does not favour quotas, they might have to be imposed if companies could not tackle the gender gap on their own.

A year ago Dr Reding had called on companies to take steps to raise the number of female board members to 30% by 2015 and 40% by 2020.

[...]

Source:

Sky News

URL:

http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/16182645

Date:

March 6, 2012

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Why Your Next Board Member Should Be A Woman

Teaser:

Aileen Lee argues that by adding new blood to the boardroom, companies get a four-fer, or more: 1) gender diversity, and in most cases, age diversity around the table; 2) better understanding of core customers; 3) Social-Mobile-Local expertise and insight into digital platforms like Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, Path, Square, Flipboard and Pinterest that are fundamentally changing business; and 4) hyper growth and rapid innovation DNA.

Editorial:

From Tech Crunch:

Good questions have been asked lately of tech companies without gender diversity on their boards of directors. While women comprise 51% of the population, they make up only 15.7% of Fortune 500 boards of directors, less than 10% of California tech company boards, and 9.1% of Silicon Valley boards.

Why should we care? For one, women are the power users of many products and it’s just smart business to have an understanding of key customers around the table. Could you imagine a game company without any gamers on the leadership team or board?

If you’re not aware, studies also show companies with gender diversity at the top drive better financial performance on multiple measures – for example, 36% better stock price growth and 46% better return on equity. And, studies show the more women, the better the results. This is likely because teams with more females demonstrate higher collective intelligence and better problem solving ability. So it’s probably not a coincidence the world’s most admired companies have more women on their boards than the average company.

[...]

Source:

Tech Crunch

URL:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/19/why-your-next-board-member-should-be-a-woman-why-your-next-board-member-should-be-a-woman/

Date:

February 24, 2012

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A Facebook Executive, and the Barriers Ahead

Teaser:

Letter to the editor by Linda Basch, Ph.D., president of the National Council for Research on Women, regarding Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg and the lack of women on corporate boards like Facebook's.

Editorial:

From The New York Times:

To the Editor:

By her own example, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook demonstrates all that women can achieve when they have the talent, drive and opportunity to succeed, and she is paving the way for other women to follow her path to the top (“The $1.6 Billion Woman, Staying on Message,” Feb. 5).

But research cautions that there are many other barriers, some invisible, that continue to block women from success: subtle and not-so-subtle biases about what constitutes leadership, a lack of mentors and sponsors to pull women through the pipeline, and a corporate culture that may lack flexibility and other policies to enable women to advance.

Women’s representation on Fortune 500 boards continues to languish. With women accounting for a majority of Facebook users, it is in the company’s interest to ensure that women are represented throughout decision-making. Let’s hope that when the company goes public, Ms. Sandberg’s trailblazing will include inviting women onto the board. Linda Basch, Ph.D.

Manhattan, Feb. 6

The writer is president of the National Council for Research on Women.•

Source:

the New York Times

URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/business/letters-a-facebook-executive-and-the-barriers-ahead.html

Date:

February 11, 2012

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Welcome to the new

NCRW Website

Upcoming Events

women on boards

Should Women Use Humour in the Boardroom?

Private equity women come out against quotas

Protest Outside Facebook HQ Challenges Pale, Male And Stale Board

Women on boards: one year on

Discussion Paper - Deutsche Bundesbank: Executive board composition and bank risk taking

Catalyst Proposes 25% Women on FP500 Boards by 2017

E.U. Considers Quotas for Women in Boardrooms

Quotas Possible To Get More Women On Boards

Why Your Next Board Member Should Be A Woman

A Facebook Executive, and the Barriers Ahead