Last month, the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) announced that, for the first time in history, there are no all-male boards in Australia’s top 200 companies.
The latest AICD report shows women now make up 33.7 per cent of board roles in the ASX 200, but there are 74 boards that have not reached the 30 per cent target and 22 boards with just one woman. Meanwhile, the ASX 300 has reached 32.1 per cent women on boards but still has eight all-male boards and 51 with just one woman.
There has been significant progress in companies in the ASX 201-300, with a six per cent increase in the overall proportion of women on boards. “Reaching no all-male boards in the ASX 200 is a milestone for Australia that should be celebrated. It represents a great shift in the approach to diversity by our largest organisations,” said AICD CEO and Managing Director Angus Armour.
“The progress being seen lower down on the ASX is also encouraging and a testament to the leadership and commitment of chairs and directors, as well as groups who have pushed for change. To ensure this momentum continues, boards also need to look further into the diversity of their executive teams.
The board plays a key role in setting the tone for inclusion within an organisation, and through their own modeling of diversity can play an influential role in inspiring and supporting women into management roles. If these principles were truly embraced by organisations, there is no reason we shouldn’t witness gender parity across leadership ranks much sooner than is currently anticipated.”
The recent Towards Board Gender Parity report by the University of Queensland Business School highlighted that Australia was one of just three countries in the world to reach 30 per cent women on their top listed company boards without mandated quotas. However, the report identified that there are potential risks to future progress on gender diversity, one of them being the shrinking pipeline of women into CEO and senior executive roles.
“To ensure sustainable change, organisations should set clear targets to report against, invest in talent pipelines and make leaders accountable for improving women’s progression into leadership roles,” said 30% Club Australia Chair Nicola Wakefield Evans. “Key to this will be challenging the current environment to create career pathways and ensuring cultures in which women are able to thrive and progress into leadership roles.
“The calibre and experience of women being appointed to ASX boards, from those who are well established to those achieving their first listed role, is exceedingly high, busting the myth that setting board gender targets would lead to a decrease in the quality of appointments.”
Earlier this month, Chief Executive Women(CEW)‘s 2021 Senior Executive Census echoed this concern, revealing little progress on the representation of women in key executive roles in the past five years. It revealed that women hold only 10 CEO roles in ASX 200 and 18 in ASX 300 companies.
CEW is now calling for gender targets in executive leadership teams, which both the AICD and 30% Club Australia support. The AICD urges companies to use each appointment as an opportunity to shift towards a sustainable model of equality that ensures women are represented across each level of leadership.
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