Day: 22 mars 2012

Liste de 3 500 femmes prêtes à siéger sur des C.A. européens


The European Business Schools/Women on Board initiative has published a first  list of more than 3500 board-ready women to bring Europe into the 21st  Century and support European Commission Vice President Reding’s initiative to shatter  the glass ceiling for women in Europe’s publicly listed corporation’s board  rooms.

The European Business Schools Women on Board Initiative

The list includes individual profiles of 150  senior executive women who are publicly supporting Commissioner Reding’s  initiative as well as European Business Schools who have culled their alumnae,  faculty, and Board members to identify more than 3500 “board ready” women.

The group has also published five sets of  criteria for board membership.  These  criteria were used as guidelines for the selection of the individual women and  by the business schools for their selection of board ready women (see below).

The group includes Business Schools such as  IESE (ES), EDHEC (F), INSEAD (F), Cambridge Judge Business School (UK), IMD  (CH) , RSM (NL), Boston University Leadership Institute(BE),  ESMT (D) and the business school association  EFMD (European Foundation of Management Development) as well as professional organizations  such as the GTWN (Global Telecom Women’s Network), WiTT (Women in Telecoms and  Technology), WoB  (Women on Boards), the  FT Non-Executive Director’s Club, EPWN (European Professsional Women’s Network),  IFA (Institut Francais des Administrateurs),  TIAW (The International Alliance for Women).

By publishing this first list, the group believes  it will do away with oft-cited remarks such as “there are not any qualified  women” and “where can board ready women be found”.  It also believes that such a list will help  increase not only the gender diversity but also the international diversity of  companies since many corporations may wish to avail themselves of the talent of  senior executive women from other countries than where they are based.

L’avenir des quotas en Europe : le débat se poursuit


Excellent article sur l’avenir des quotas en Europe. Voici un long extrait de ce document:

Norway’s businesswomen and the boardroom bias debate

As the EU begins a three-month consultation on whether there should be quotas for women in the boardroom, Harriet Alexander asks whether Norway’s quotas could work in Britain.

Mrs Berdal said she was broadly supportive of the quota system, as a necessary   step – even though she disliked the principle of interference in boards. She   also denied that it had adversely affected the profitability of Norwegian   companies.

« If women are just there as ‘tokens’, then the nomination committee is   doing a really bad job. I don’t know any woman who is there just to make up   the numbers; they are all highly qualified and professional, » she said.

« There was obviously resistance at the beginning, but now that it has been   there for a few years it has weakened.

« My general experience is that it is working fine, and that boards are not   weakened by the system: on the contrary, in fact.

But other business experts have expressed scepticism that the EU could impose  uniform restrictions on such diverse national working cultures.

Kenneth Ahern, a professor of finance from the University of Michigan, doubted   whether Britain was ready to make the necessary financial sacrifice to push  women onto boards. His own research on Norway, published last year, showed   that « the quota led to younger and less experienced boards, and   deterioration in operating performance, consistent with less capable boards. »

He told The Sunday Telegraph: « In Norway, they knew that the value   of their companies would drop, but society there cared more about equality   than finance. It was a conscious decision.

« For the EU to make such an important moral choice, across such a variety   of countries, is a very big ask indeed. I could see there being real   resistance to obligatory quotas from countries such as Germany and the UK,   which prize the financial output extremely highly. »

Mrs Berdal, who was a widely-travelled international lawyer before dedicating   herself full time to board work, agreed that it could be hard to impose   quotas in Britain.

« I think the British culture – both in society in general, and in   business – is a bit more conservative, and still a bit more male dominated   than in Scandinavia.

« In the boardroom, if you have only men, they tend to know each other   from school, university or the golf club, and decisions are often made   outside of the boardroom so you don’t have full control and transparency.   Maybe in the UK you’ll have to twist some more arms. »