A Call to Action

Helen Lynch AM, Chair Westpac Superannuation Fund

Thank you for the warm remarks.

Congratulations to Ruth and Claire and the team who made all of this possible. Just look at the wonderful brain power, energy and expertise in this room and it certainly puts to bed the myth that it is hard to find “good” women for boards.

I am sure during the course of your deliberations you have heard the statistics of the declining number of Women in Leadership positions over the past 2 years. And while this is disappointing in the extreme we must not lose sight of the progress that has been made.

We have a woman Governor General, 3 High Court Judges, a Deputy Prime Minister, a State Premier and a woman CEO at one of Australia’s largest and most important Bank’s. Gail Kelly at Westpac. In addition we have a number of women as Chairman of Public Listed companies including Catherine Livingstone at Telstra. And Lynn Wood of Noni B and Jenny Hill-Ling from Hills Industries.

Ruth has asked me to make some comments and observations.

In the early 1990’s Margaret Jackson and I had the very good fortune to be at the vanguard of women who chose Non Executive Director roles as a second career. We both saw this as a second career not a part time role.

I had a terrific run and with the exception of one board was the first woman director on each of these boards.  I am proud to say that on every board on which I served there was another woman appointed during my time on that board. Each one of us has the duty and obligation to help other women to succeed, after all individual fame and success is fleeting and the best legacy is the people who come after us.

The fundamental issue in holding back the numbers of women directors in the failure to to identify high potential, then to train, develop, mentor and encourage women early in their careers.

Observation Number 1
Being a Non Executive Director is not for the feint hearted.  Recent events certainly confirm this.

Observation Number 2
In the past five years or so there has been a disproportionate amount of time spent at board level on remuneration issues at the expense of discussions on succession. By this I mean identification of talent, high potential people, diversity, equity in access to  training and development, mentoring and retention strategies, and taking a risk on young women to give them equal access to promotion.

There is also in my experience, very little discussion on flexibility and workforce reform which would greatly assist women. And yet, we know that we are facing a skills shortage that will be as damaging to business as sustainability and global warming.   We are facing a massive waste of talent.

Observation Number 3
Have you observed the more worthy the task the more women and the more financially rewarding the task the more men?  Men dominate the senior roles in all of the legal, accounting and consulting firms, major institutions and the financial sector. On the other hand women are strong in the public sector, the arts and not for profit organisations.  And yet notwithstanding how complex, difficult and challenging a number of these roles are they do not seem to count for “real CEO experience “.

Observation Number 4
There is a large cohort of extremely talented women in large and complex organisations.  They are often in the important functional roles of HR, Strategic Marketing, IT, Corporate Affairs, General Counsel and most often reporting to the CEO and part of the Top Team and have interaction with the Board.

If you think about the issues these functions deal with they are all issues boards should be thinking about.  Not just the dollars and cents but the intangibles. In functional roles your very success depends on your intellectual capacity, judgment, interpersonal skills, integrity, influencing skills and your ability to think about the ethical consequences of decisions.  These are the very skills essential in every NED. This cohort needs to be much better at promoting and selling their relevant skills and to be given to the opportunity to do the business roles which often lead to CEO roles.

Simply put, we need many more highly visible women leaders in executive roles.  Role models are important as seeing a woman doing these jobs is both aspirational and motivational for younger women.  It makes them feel; gee I can do that too. These comments are not meant to exclude women from Rural and Regional areas.  I originally come from the bush, Charleville in outback Queensland so know the contribution women make in the rural communities, however, time does not permit me to cover each area.

Observation Number 5
Most successful people, regardless of profession or industry are good networkers. Strategic networking for career progression is a legitimate work activity.  Networking with other women is good for support and encouragement but you must network with the dominant coalition as they are the ultimate decision makers.

And finally let me make some comments on quotas as I know that is a hot topic and a subject you have been speaking about today.

Up and down the years when I give speeches on equity, diversity, corporate responsibility, and leadership I debate with myself on the topic of quotas as I am mindful of the success in Norway. On balance, I always come out against quotas although I respect the opinions of the growing number of women who support this view. Indeed we are overdue for a serious debate on the issue.

We all want to be promoted on merit, not tick a box for a quota. While it might satisfy some to pay lip service to quotas it will not change the hearts and minds.  It will not influence a sustainable organisational cultural change which celebrates the values, the beliefs, the attitudes and behaviours that genuinely support diversity.  I fear that quotas to increase the number of women might well result in unintended consequences for us.

The fact is that not every woman wants to get to the senior executive level or to be an NED for whatever reason. Some elect to stay at home, run a small business, some want a job not a career as they put a priority on family needs. For this reason mandatory percentage targets may well not reflect the reality of particular organisations or industries. Also, in any group not everyone who wants one of the top job gets there. Even the very best and brightest men and women can miss out because of luck in timing.  You might be right for the growth cycle but not right for the turnaround for instance.

What we do know is that workforce reform and flexibility would greatly assist women. The Federal Government seems to be establishing lots of committees so why not a group to seriously look at workforce reform and retention of women?

So while I am against mandatory quotas I do think we can make real, sustainable progress with voluntary targets providing they are published.

A call to action to Australian Public Listed Companies,  Women on Boards and Chief Executive Women

1. I would like to see boards and CEO’s publically commit to increase the number of women in senior executive roles and link this to the remuneration of the CEO and the top executives and publish the results in their annual report. Please recall what happened when CEO salaries were first published the $numbers increased significantly. It would just be terrific if the competitive nature of our CEO’s was put into making the promotion of women a strategic bottom line business issue on which their performance was publically measured and rewarded. We might then get better results without mandatory quotas.
2. Women’s groups and women as shareholders should be lobbying Government, analysts and institutional investors to support rating companies on their results in promoting increasing numbers of women into senior roles.  This is the feeder into NED roles and the retention and promotion of women is a shareholder value issue.
3. Finally committing to targets and to tracking and then publishing the results is
   THE RIGHT THING TO DO
   IT’S THE FAIR THING TO DO
   IT’S IN THE NATION’S INTEREST TO DO SO

So let’s have Corporate Australia step up to the opportunity to demonstrate we truly value diversity and acknowledge the contribution to the bottom line.

Only when women take their place in relevant numbers will corporate Australia demonstrate bold leadership, irrevocably change corporate culture, significantly enhance our reputation and deliver shareholder value.

Thank you.