Women over-board
Published on HighGrade
30 April 2007
www.highgrade.net
WHERE are all the women making a fortune running exploration and mining companies, and mining services companies, during the resources boom? That question was raised again by the recent Business Review Weekly survey of Australia's wealthiest public company executives.
The list had strong mining sector representation, but a poor overall female executive ratio and an even less imposing list of top women executives growing their net worth on the back of rocketing resource company share prices.
Of the top 200 public company executives only four were women and one woman was among the 39 mining-sector executives who made the wealthy 200 list.
The list highlighted the escalating fortunes of many junior and mid-ranking exploration and mining company executives who have been at the helm of their companies as they've ridden the resources boom. At a time when the mining industry in Australia and elsewhere is working harder to attract more women into its ranks at all levels, the list does not paint a particularly attractive picture of career prospects at the top of the management tree.
According to a bi-annual study by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency which was released last year, Australia still lags behind the US and England in female corporate leadership. Women held 12% of executive management positions in Australian Securities Exchange top 200 companies (ASX200) as at February 2006, while in the US women held 16.4% and England 14.4%.
The study also showed the number of women holding chief executive officer (CEO) and board positions in Australia was low, with females holding 3% of CEO and 8.7% of director positions. The agency said the levels had not changed much over the previous two years.
Chairperson of the six-year-old Australian group, Women on Boards (WOB), Ruth Medd said it was time company boards better reflected the input of women in the modern workplace. "I am a shareholder of lots of companies and I expect the boards to represent the best mix of people that will produce the best financial outcome and a good corporate citizen outcome," she said.
"Research is showing that companies have better financial results with women on boards. Companies with women on their boards also tend to keep their senior women managers or tend to have more [senior women managers]. There are also enough indications around that women will bring a different perspective to a range of issues."
WOB has 3200 members who hold middle-to-senior management positions with companies. About 70% have board positions.
Medd believes an established "men's network" does often present an iron wall for corporate women to overcome.
"I think the men have some inherent advantages [in being elected to boards] because they tend to know people from social networks, whereas the women tend not to generally speaking. So, they've got to work harder to break into those networks and that's what we try and help them to do with some of our events,"
Medd said. "There are very few vacancies on public company boards; turnover is low, and you need to be known to get asked.
"Regardless of how skilled you are you have to work to know the people who decide on the board seats and generally the chairman has a big say, and generally it's a male."
Medd said WOB promoted the availability of women for board spots.
Company directors needed a wealth of business experience, knowledge of various industry sectors and a skill set that might be missing from a board.
A continuing problem was the ratio of available women with these attributes, to men. "It's back to there only being 12% women senior executives to choose from," she said. "A number of high-profile boards recruit directors from ex-CEOs. Needless to say there are few women ex-CEOs."
"Often the women senior executives are in say human resources, legal or public affairs - not the spots where the big dollars are paid. Because there are so few of them they do not participate in the wealth list and probably do not get the opportunity relative to the males."
Several industry executives said women found it harder than men to balance work and family, and to overcome extended career breaks.
"I think everyone comes out of university thinking that things are changing, and then you see everyone around you gradually getting worn down either by attitudes, or inflexibility of our workplaces," said a senior consultant with a mining services firm.
"Some are much better than others, of course, but I came out of uni thinking that women were going to take over, myself included. I now think that combining a family with a full-time job is just too hard and you have no quality of life if you try to do both (full-time) at once. Your career is on a par, or often much better to, the men's until you pop out that first baby - then your prospects, pay, promotion opportunities, the ability to negotiate good working conditions all go downhill rapidly. I don't think this problem is specific to the mining industry though, but the predominance of site-based work does tend make all these issues insurmountable, rather than just inconvenient."
Sue Border, principal of Sydney-based Geos Mining, said: "I do think the numbers of women are slowly growing in the industry but there are still far too few at senior level.
"Too many are leaving the industry mid-career - often, but not always to start families - and never returning. I feel there is still something of a glass ceiling at board level; there are far too few female directors of mining companies.
"In the junior exploration sectors I suspect this is due more to the innate conservatism of the finance sector rather than a lack of suitable female candidates; brokers and bankers tend to go for the names they know."
Border is also involved with the Women in Mining network (WIMnet), which is a correspondence network supported by the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM). WIMnet's primary aims include supporting women in the industry, and working to redress the gender imbalance in the industry. It acts as a lobby group, support network and source of information.
