Canada’s executives unconcerned with number of women on boards: report

It wasn’t so very long ago that we were celebrating a major victory for women in business with news of Kathleen Taylor’s ground-breaking (and ceiling-shattering) appointment to the position of chair of a major Canadian bank.

It really seemed like what the cigarette companies used to tell us years ago was true: We’ve come a long way, baby.

But, wait. Put down the party hats. The party is a little premature.

A recent C-Suite survey of Canadian executives tells us we’ve still got quite a journey ahead of us to reach gender parity in the corporate world.

Women remain vastly underrepresented on boards and among senior corporate ranks, yet most executives don’t seem to care.

A minority of executives (42 per cent) expressed concern with the inequity, according to the survey. That leaves another 58 per cent who are not very interested.

Most, 64 per cent, say they’re satisfied with the number of women they already have in their company’s executive ranks.

Here are some more of the numbers:

• Sixty per cent of executives surveyed say they have no women on their boards currently and just 7 per cent have two or more;

• On average, 9 per cent of the directorships with the companies whose executives were surveyed are held by women;

• Only a fraction (13 per cent) of companies has policies in place to address gender diversity;

• Most oppose regulations under consideration by the Ontario Securities Commission to increase the representation of women on boards and in senior executive positions at publicly listed companies.

It begs the question, what’s going on here? Is it outright discrimination or, as many executives believe, are there simply not enough qualified women out there to fill the senior positions?

Alex Johnston can barely sit still when asked these same questions.

“I am very passionate about this because it drives me crazy,” said Johnston, executive director of Catalyst Canada, a research and advocacy group for women executives.

Johnston said the survey numbers are far from surprising. The slow pace of women’s success in business year over year is all the evidence we need of ongoing corporate complacency.

It’s not a deliberate move to keep women out of the boardroom, she said.

“It is inspiring and humbling to me, to see how many business leaders, how many male business leaders, are taking this on,” she said.

But neither is it true the talent pool for female leaders is shallow.

It simply takes a more deliberate and focussed effort to find the right woman for the job.

Johnston pointed to Royal Bank Canada’s appointment of Taylor as board chair, a role she is set to take on Jan. 1, and the Bank of Montreal’s commitment to secure every other vacant board seat for a woman as examples of how deliberate action can bring about necessary change.

Catalyst launched an initiative last year to help companies recruit and promote more qualified women into senior roles. The goal is to see the number of women in corporate board positions rise to 25 per cent over the next five years, up from 14.5 per cent.

Johnston said she never gets tired of reminding Canadians why gender diversity matters.

Catalyst research shows companies with the most women board directors outperform those with the least on return on sales and return on invested capital. Companies with three or more women board directors over several years “significantly” outperform those with no women.

Beyond the hard numbers, Johnston believes it’s a matter of responsibility to seek a diversity of opinion from people who may see the world through a different lens.

“On an individual level, we understand that by surrounding yourself for anything in life, especially if it involves a complex decision, with people exactly like you is not a good dynamic,” she said.