Brisbane next target for female directors

By Claire Braund
Appeared in Company Director, April 2004

Women on Boards, (WoB), is taking its program, to improve the gender balance on Australian company boards through skills based selection, to Brisbane for the first time in April.

At an already over-subscribed WoB event at the Qld Parliament House Annex, aspirant female directors will network with women and men who sit on a range of not-for-profit, sporting, government, public and private boards.

Under discussion will be how do well-qualified, skilled women with corporate careers and/or relevant experience, get onto boards?

Recent market research commissioned by WoB of 412 Australian companies reveals that only 7% of board members are women and only 2% of companies have three female directors.

Ruth Medd, WoB Steering Committee Chair, says these sobering statistics show that women continue to be under represented in positions of power and influence in Australia and that, as a consequence, "Australia is failing to reach its full potential."

WoB is using funding from the Federal Government through the Office of the Status of Women to take its program national in 2004.

A key feature is the new online WoB database, which invites women to register their professional profile in order to be advised of board positions, access information and research and participate in discussion forums. The database is made available to headhunting firms, companies and organisations seeking directors - to "get women on the radar" in our boardrooms.

However Medd stresses that WoB is not a search firm, but a conduit to increase the number of women on boards. It works collaboratively with the not-for-profit, sports, public and private sectors as well as the AICD and women's groups at a number of levels.

A current WoB pilot project is being run with the Sydney University Football Club, where the all male board has agreed to create a sub-committee of senior female marketing professionals to fill a gap in its board expertise.

David Mortimer, SUFC President and director of Virgin Blue, Macquarie Infrastructure Group & Leighton Holdings, said the sub-committee will tackle challenges, including supporting sponsors, developing new opportunities to benefit sponsors and the Club itself and raise the standard of functions and events.

"Recruiting a team of marketers via the Women on Boards initiative will ideally allow us to access the best talent to help administer and improve the club. We were very impressed with the vision outlined to us by WOB regarding the skill sets available to us," Mortimer said.

In return, the SUFC board and SUFC Foundation, which raises funds for the club, will provide the five women with unparalleled networking opportunities at the top end of town and in the sports world.

This strategy addresses a key finding of the WoB research, that the main process for identifying prospective board members is referral by existing directors (78%) or the MD or CEO (57%). For women this means getting a profile, holding a senior position in a company, getting line management and operational experience and "networking like crazy" as the 38 female directors surveyed almost universally recommended.

Elizabeth Johnstone, partner with law firm Blake Dawson Waldron who advises some of Australia's top boards on their corporate governance, has a slightly different take on what is needed to be good director, listing three attributes as critical:

  • Personal integrity; having an independence of mind and knowing how to challenge and question.
  • A good sense of what it is to be collegiate and work as a team; putting aside your professional interests and qualifications and working with the board.
  • A strong sense of stewardship - you are voted in by shareholders to ensure their interests are met and staff, creditors and suppliers are looked after.

"These skills are not gender based, they apply equally to men and women … there is a changing of the guard and the days of the long sinecure are gone and will never come back," Johnstone says.

"Boards have a much greater willingness to look at the skill mix and put an appropriate group of people together with the right knowledge; they are actively looking for people to be change agents."

Dr Cherrell Hirst, a director of Pepplin Biotech and Suncorp and the Chancellor of Queensland University of Technology, points to cultural fit as a key area for women to consider.

"You can't be the odd one out, even what you drink is important."

Recounting a story of being asked by ABC radio to talk about her passion live on air for three minutes, Hirst told how she had prepared to talk about education, but when she arrived in the studio was asked by the announcer if she could find something a bit more interesting.

Hirst came up with malt whiskey, which she enjoys and knows much about. She instantly established a connection with the male listeners who make up the "boardroom club" and is invariably offered a whiskey at post board meeting drinks. Would she have she received the same interest had she spoken about education?

Hirst will be speaking about women on boards at the Brisbane function during a panel interview with networking specialist, Robyn Henderson, the MC for the evening. Other panel members and mentor directors include company director John Lyons, director AICD Qld, Ross Dunning, Director Toll Holdings & Brisbane Port Authority, Bronwyn Morris (Chair Qld Rail) and Jane Wilson, Chair, AICD Qld & Horticulture Australia, director IMBcom Ltd, Bligh Ventures Ltd & Protagonist Ltd.