Fearless Girl in the Boardroom: Just Getting There Isn't Enough

“When I’m sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]? and I say, ‘When there are nine,’ people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

With nine as the typical size of a board of directors, Justice Ginsburg might well have been speaking of the corporate board room. Last year the number of women on corporate boards achieved its largest year-over-year increase to hit a record high: women now hold 26.7% of Russell 3000 public company board seats. But even if the current trajectory continues, achieving gender parity could take another decade (and even longer for representative racial/ethnic diversity).

In a recent fireside chat with a group of talented Duke University undergraduate women, I was asked what I was doing personally to achieve gender equality in the boardroom. I am proud to be among the 26.7% women corporate directors.?But their question caused me to reflect on how I leverage that role to help improve diversity on boards.

Don’t be limited by the numbers

Numbers are often a focus of the board diversity conversation, with good intention: metrics gauge growth and progress. There is a potential unintended side effect of measuring diversity by the numbers: the tendency to see these targets as a de facto ceiling, rather than a floor. I can offer personal experience as an example.

When I began my pursuit of a board seat, I reached out to a former colleague who was then CEO of a publicly traded company. I knew his board was already 40% women, so I called for a potential referral, instead of a spot in his board pipeline. A phone call from his Nominating & Governance Chair a few months later came as a pleasant surprise. I had let the numbers limit me. How many other women and men were doing the same —rather than thinking boldly like RBG?

Use your voice

New board members are often coached to remain largely silent observers in their first year. If that is the standard, I have failed with all three of my corporate boards. Fortunately, my board chairs have told me they aren’t interested in “wallflowers” but in directors who voice their unique points of view.

In the boardroom, I speak my mind openly and respectfully, but I don’t shy away from thorny issues or conflict. I have challenged fundamental strategy and operating model decisions and then stepped up to lead ad hoc committees to address concerns, including a multi-month effort to close a strategy gap between Management and Board that had been rated in the company’s top tier of risks. I have called out unconscious bias issues in leadership advancement discussions (once pointing out the trainer’s wife and Mother Theresa were the only women featured in its leadership materials alongside dozens of male role models) and influenced the promotions of deserving women. I have also tackled sensitive board dynamics issues with a combination of targeted offline discussions and pointing out the elephant in the boardroom.

I am passionate about helping my board companies achieve better outcomes and also understand that I am paving the way for more women to do the same.

Amplify your influence

Much of the work of the board happens through its committees. I have consciously sought out opportunities to serve on all three of the major committees — Audit, Compensation, and Nominating & Governance (N&G) — to build my skills as a director and to influence issues before they are brought to the full board. N&G offers the greatest opportunity to accelerate cultural change in the boardroom.

I currently serve on the N&G committees for two public companies and chair one of the two. These roles enable me to shape target director search criteria, seek out more diverse pools of candidates, and influence the interview process for new directors (e.g., ensure interview team includes a mix of women and men). I have led or co-led the last three searches on one of my boards, with all three resulting in the selection of diverse directors. The board presented in our latest Proxy Statement is 80 percent diverse by Nasdaq’s standards (gender and other under-represented minorities).

Build the upstream pipeline

To get more women in the boardroom, we need more women in the pipeline. McKinsey & Company’s 2021 Women in the Workplace report shows the gap. At entry-level, women and men are both fairly equally represented, at 47% and 52% respectively. By the time they get to the C-suite — a direct feeder for corporate boards — 75% of top roles are held by men, and only 24% are held by women.

As part of my personal journey to the boardroom, I attended Harvard Business School’s Executive Education program, Women on Boards, which became my gateway to an outstanding network in WomenExecs on Boards.?They supported me through my journey to my first board seat.?Ascribing to the group’s value of “leaving the ladder down,” I remain active with the group to assist with personal coaching and mentorship of new and aspiring directors.

Founders of that network recently featured my story as one of 36 women in the book, The Courage to Advance: Real Life Resilience from the World’s Most Successful Women in Business.??The book provided me with a platform to talk to the CEOs of my board companies and then meet with their senior and up-and-coming women.?One resulted in the launch of the company’s first-ever women’s resource group.?Another led to an opportunity to address the company’s (primarily white male) officer group at the launch of its CEO-led “Belonging, Inclusion, and Diversity” mandate to achieve explicit diversity representation goals.

With a daughter who is finishing her junior year in college, I also want to provide an example for women in the earlier stages of their careers. That is how I came to spend a rainy afternoon with members of Duke BOW (Business-Oriented Women) who asked the question that sparked this article.

Signs of progress

Diversity, at all levels of an organization, is good for business. When we add women, people of color, and other under-represented groups to our ranks, we add diversity of voice and experience. Diverse perspectives add depth to important board-level work and strengthen the organization. Everyone involved in and impacted by the business benefits.

Recently, the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) named me in its NACD 2022 Directorship 100, an annual listing that recognizes those who have demonstrated excellence in the boardroom. I was not the only woman on the list. In fact, the 2022 lifetime achievement award and two of three director of the year honorees were women. I share this to illustrate how women are having impact and making progress. ?As one of the 26.7% of women now active in the boardroom, I am doing my part to advance both.