The 'pipeline' dream

By Claire Braund
Published in the Australian Financial Review
16 December 2009

In the early 1990s the case for improving gender diversity on boards was waved away with the argument that more women moving through the ‘the pipeline’ would result in them achieving board positions. The pipeline was the mythical term given to career progression for women. It was assumed that greater numbers of female graduates in the key disciplines (law, accounting, engineering, science, medicine etc) would flow into management and senior executive roles – just as their male counterparts did.

Ten years later when the pipeline failed to deliver, some companies woke up to the economics of the situation and implemented gender diversity and workforce strategies to assist women climb the ladder in corporate Australia. Some have been very successful. Most have not as the statistics tell us (8.7% of company directors and 10.7% of senior executives on the ASX200 are women).

At its 2009 AGM, David Jones Chair Bob Savage said that the reason there wasn’t more women on ASX boards was due to the lack of prospective candidates and more work was needed to help and encourage women through the management ranks so that they had the necessary skills to be appointed to boards. In the same week Chris Thomas, partner at Egon Zehnder asserted there is no boys club, only inability of significant corporations and leading professional firms to facilitate women into senior levels.

Their comments raised the following questions:

  1. If there isn’t a boys club then who has been preventing women moving into senior roles?
  2. How have senior men been actively mentoring and supporting women to achieve these roles?
  3. If the board is responsible for hiring the CEO, influencing the appointment of senior executives and setting the strategic direction for the company, then why has attention not been paid to the deficit of women in top ranks and the serious economic implications for this human capital loss over the past two decades?
  4. What has been the role of advisors, such as executive search firms, in alerting boards to the need to look beyond traditional sources (former CEOs and male partners in law/ accounting firms) for board members?
  5. Why do we still have a gender pay gap of 17 per cent?

Directors, CEOs and senior executives across all ASX companies might like to consider their responsibility over the past 20 years towards doing something about the dearth of top end female talent some are currently lamenting. It’s not good enough to say that the reason there are fewer women at board level is because there aren’t enough in the feeder pool – and then move onto the next issue. Leaders have obligations to shareholders and society to ensure that their organisations are the best they can be. This does not mean ignoring half the talent.

Women on Boards suggest the following areas from which female directors might be sourced:

  • CFO’s, COOs and experienced company secretary’s
  • CEOs and managing directors of mid-sized companies (more than 100 employees)
  • Heads of business units and subsidiaries of ASX200 companies
  • CEOs of large not for profit companies and local government entities
  • Former partners in service firms (close to 20 per cent of partners in accounting firms are women)

Nothing tells us about attitudes as much as a story. At the 2nd Diversity on Boards Conference, a story emerged that highlighed one approach to improving opportunities for women at senior levels.

The story was told by five Women on Boards members (including a former CEO) about their application for a vacancy for a well paid board gig in a mid-sized company posted on our website. None could believe they had not even been spoken to or put onto the shortlist by the consultant from the recruitment firm handling the appointment. However one of them told how she had emailed the chair who was a former work colleague, who had said she would be great for the role. When she received the rejection notice from the consultant, she forwarded it to the chair. The result – the chair ensured she was placed onto the shortlist and in time appointed to the board as the best candidate.