Gender Parity in the Boardroom: One Millennial's Perspective

I am accustomed to the new normal – a culture of instant gratification. In our hyper-connected world, life has gradually taken on a quicker pace. Each day I see the adage “slow and steady wins the race” losing relevance, which is why it is troublesome to read the Forum of Executive Women’s annual Women on Boards report [1] and learn of the “slow, but increasing change each year”. Phrases like “not enough to alter the overall picture of gender imbalance” and “progress toward gender parity in the boardroom and c-suite is far from complete” jumped off the page. Only 8 of the 35 companies with zero women on their boards last year added a female director. Furthermore, 42% of the top 100 public companies in Philadelphia only have one female director on their board and 14% haven’t added more than one in the past 5 years. With that in mind, it’s easy to question if organizations are truly committed to gender parity or are they simply checking a box.

Despite these dismal statistics, I still firmly see the positive possibilities for the future of women in the boardroom. The collective age of boards is rising with the average director being 63 years old. A large majority of companies have firm retirement ages (often 72) which will free up many board seats over the next five years. [2] Of the entire report, I find the key, most encouraging statistic to be one-in-three open board seats went to a woman last year, which reinforces organizations are seeing and understanding the benefits that come with having a diverse board of directors.

In terms of decision making, diverse boardrooms hear many different views which often better accounts for a wider range of risks and possible implications of that decision. The makeup of the board should be representative of the stakeholders including shareholders, employees, and customers. The board’s main responsibility is to the shareholders, but if there is concern among employees and customers, shareholders will ultimately feel that same concern. A diverse board representative of all groups better anticipates the concerns of all stakeholders.

To the credit of the boards that currently do not have women directors, but have racially, culturally, and ethnically diverse members, I applaud them for taking an excellent first step and urge them to consider gender diversity in the near future. As I started out saying, the rate of change in which women are represented in the boardroom may be counter-intuitive to how we live and operate in 2016, but slow growth is undeniably better than stagnancy. I sympathize with those who share my same affinity for immediate results and subsequent disappointment at the slow growth, but implore those to remain optimistic of the future.

1. Forum of Executive Women Women on Boards, 2016
2. Spencer Stuart Board Index, 2015