We Need to Get Younger Women on Boards

Washington Business Journal recently wrote an article about how the progress of women on corporate boards has now hit a wall.? After a few years of progress, the past 1-2 years have slowed down dramatically.? The article quotes the nonprofit 50/50 Women on Boards as saying that we were on track for gender parity (about 50-50 man/women representation) by 2035.? With the latest slowdown, it is now projected to be 2044.? Twenty years from now.? As a woman in her 40s, this blows my mind.??

Study after study after study talks about how performance is better with a more diverse board.? There are what seems to be millions of studies around leadership and diversity.? About different perspectives and a lack of groupthink, yadda, yadda, yadda.? These studies are everywhere, and you’d have to be under a rock to not have read something on the subject.

So why is this still such an issue?? And why are companies not moving towards building their boards to be more reflective of their workforces?? We now have women leading some of the top GovCons in the industry – SAIC, GDIT, and General Dynamics.? Data that suggests when women are leading or there is a woman board chair or further, a woman nominating chair, there is much more parity (though not truly 50-50 yet).? This ultimately may serve as a competitive advantage in the field, given how far behind some of the industry is.

Another not-as-surprising but also mind-blowing statistic is how old the boards are.? The article cites that the average age for women is 59 and for men is 62.? It even quotes that there are 576 directors of public boards who are age 80 or older and that 96% of those 576 directors are men.? Older does not necessarily mean wiser.? It usually means (with some exceptions) more traditional thinking.? As ML, AI, and Space take off in our industry, do we not need folks with non-traditional thinking?? Folks who have start-up experience?? Folks who have fresher ideas?? What holds a board back from offering positions to those in their 30s and 40s???

I have so many extremely capable women in my world.? Many of whom would make excellent board members. Many of whom are younger than 59.? Women are screaming they are ready and able to serve as board members in GovCon, myself included (seriously...my perspective is valuable and I would welcome the opportunity to serve on a private board of advisors...message me!).

What advice do folks have for those looking for these roles?? What advice do you have for the companies in terms of dipping their toes into the waters of gender parity?

Sidenote: What’s unknown is the number of women on private boards and whether there is more or less parity there.? If anyone has this information or knows where to get it, I would be really interested.