"I don't think women fit comfortably into the board environment"

Coming back to Katie's question, there are a few recommendations in the 2017 review that I find interesting. They are:

• Have executive search firms support with recruitment of women to boards
• Make the progress of gender balanced boards a key corporate governance matter
• Investors should discuss with investee companies gender balance, particularly where progress is slow
• Within the corporate governance section of annual reports, publish the number of women on executive committees

This may be a matter of policy leading culture but if the 'archaic excuses' are long held beliefs, perhaps they need heavy-handed incentives to make changes.

Coming back to Katie's question, there are a few recommendations in the 2017 review that I find interesting. They are:

• Have executive search firms support with recruitment of women to boards
• Make the progress of gender balanced boards a key corporate governance matter
• Investors should discuss with investee companies gender balance, particularly where progress is slow
• Within the corporate governance section of annual reports, publish the number of women on executive committees

This may be a matter of policy leading culture but if the 'archaic excuses' are long held beliefs, perhaps they need heavy-handed incentives to make changes.

I attended a presentation on the subject of gender balanced boards last year. The ex-CEO of one of the largest oil companies spoke about how having a woman join the board changed the conversations - in particular he talked about how she raised the issue of work-life balance to the benefit of all board members. But the men would never have talked about it on their own.
We need more male board members to talk about the benefits of having women on their boards - they are the only ones likely to influence their skeptic colleagues.