Business schools’ call to action: more women on company boards

“Call to action” sounds dramatic. What is behind the idea?
The Call to Action is a pledge that companies make to endorse more female leaders in their boards. The goal is to raise the number of female executives in boards from 30 per cent in 2015 to 40 per cent or more in 2020. This does not mean kicking out any male colleagues but carefully replacing retiring board members with highly qualified female staff from the same pool and the same experience as their male colleagues. This is about quality and pluralism – to show that not one way only is the right way to do business.

Why is such an initiative necessary in our modern society?
We need initiatives like these precisely because the level of female presentation in boards has fallen short. Even though women are in greater appreciation, once you look at careers and how people make it to the top, you find that the top people are very similar. To make such a pledge is non-intrusive and people generally welcome the approach as they appreciate that a greater diversity of leaders – be it female or other minorities – would diversify their company and increase performance. This is especially important in small countries like Switzerland. It is important to get the idea out that companies need to think how they assemble the right talent, and have an open mind that not one group in our society has all the answers. Don’t be arrogant, don’t think that you know everything! Think which experts do you need and then look at the players, and one half of these players are male and one are female.

A few months ago Josef Ackermann, the chief executive of Deutsche Bank, said that appointing women to the bank’s executive board (which currently has none) would make it “prettier and more colourful”. In return, a German government minister, Ilse Aigner, advised Mr Ackermann to look for pretty and colourful things in a field of flowers or a museum. Is this still the typical attitude of men in executive positions in your opinion?
No, I don’t think this is the case. I would say there are always one or two dinosaurs out there, but then the dinosaurs became extinct, didn’t they? If you look at highly accomplished and distinguished individuals like Christine Lagarde, who was the first female chair of the international law firm Baker & McKenzie and is now managing director of the International Monetary Fund, I am sure not even Mr. Ackermann would doubt such competence. And this is the type of women that we want to bring forward and where we want to start opening doors. Why would all answers be held by people of one gender?

Some European countries like Norway for example have already introduced quotas to get more women on company boards. Is this the right solution?
I think with mandatory quotas you are going to privilege women representatives but not necessarily get talents and qualities. Voluntary initiatives like ours can be ignored by the dinosaurs out there, but I still prefer this approach as it is easier to make your case and to get companies to really think about their leaders of the 21st century.

Some people claim, it is women’s own fault that they are such a rarity on company boards and in high positions, as many are leaving the work force in their 30ies when their career is about to take off to start a family and not return to their job or if, then only part-time. What is your opinion?
I met determined men and women in my life but also men and women who did not want any career advancement but had more interest in their family, in sports or other things. But it is true that with child bearing and raising, women generally bear a greater disruption in their career. The challenge for companies is how to mitigate this so that if someone wants to have a serious career afterwards, she could have it. People live longer these days, retire later. Why should the decision to have a break for children have a long term consequence for women in their 50ies or 60ies? Smart managers think about how to keep female colleagues in the company and working despite them having family commitments. This is a challenge which goes beyond our pledge but is very important.

What is the situation like at your business school? How many women attend the classes and how are they faring compared to the men?
One in four students at our school is female. These 25 per cent are lower than at other business schools where there are 30 per cent women. This is despite lots of recruiting efforts from our side. However, the women that we do have are doing extremely well. They achieve better results, they get more and better offers and they get them quicker than their male colleagues. 

How do you support women at your school?
We try to create well informed, educated business women, highly talented MBAs that everyone would want in their company. We have a fair amount of success in placement and it can get quite competitive which helps the salary as well. Competition is possibly the best antidote to discrimination. We also try to attract women to the school governance. At the moment, four out of eleven people are women and we have taken steps to attract people from senior level of business as well as senior level of academia. We also have a large proportion of female staff, female coaches in career management etc.

Do you teach women and men differently?
Women and men attend the same courses at our school but we do have differentiated teaching which is not only gender based but also involves other important diversifications. Our personal development side is tailored to the individual and during those trainings all special needs are addressed.

Do men and women have different strengths when they approach business in your opinion?
I don’t think there are certain typical characteristics like persistence or creativity that only belong to men or women. I rather believe that you find those qualities distributed amongst men and women equally and that those distributions overlap.

So you don’t think that women lead differently in managerial positions?
I believe that there are unique combinations of characteristics in exceptional leaders and certain sets of skills but they are not related to gender or race or sexual orientation in my opinion.

McKinsey estimates that America’s GDP is about 25 per cent higher today than it would have been without women in the work force. Kevin Daly from investment bank Goldman Sachs has calculated that eliminating the remaining gap between male and female employment rates could boost the GDP in America by nine per cent, in the euro zone by 13 per cent and in Japan by as much as 16 per cent. Is closing this gap the secret of success for this coming decade?
I don’t like these calculations as they only value work that has a price tag. It is not a fair comparison. We need people to raise our children and can’t send all parents to work and place kids in front of the TV the whole day. The question should be a different one: will the GDP go up if we take equality serious? And that’s what the call to action stands for.

Call to action co-authors Business Schools and Business School Associations:
Boston University in Brussels, Judge Business School Cambridge University, Edhec Business School, EFMD – European Foundation for Management Development, Erasmus University: Rotterdam School of Management, ESMT, IMD Business School, Insead, University of St. Gallen: Institute for Leadership and Human Resource Management – Female Board Pool.

Women corporate directors:
Brigitte Boone, Bridget Cosgrave, Hélène Deslauriers, Lady Barbara Judge, Lori Gonnu, Candace Johnson, Lesley Stephenson who are also alumnae and/or board members of Harvard Business School, London Business School, Wharton, Insead, and SOAS.

Professional Organisations:
European Professional Women's Network, Financial Times Non-Executive Director's Club, GTWN - Global Telecom Women's Network, GUBERNA - Belgian Governance and Board Members Association, IFA - Institut Français des Administrateurs, WOB - Women on Board, TIAW - The International Alliance for Women.

Sources and further reading:
Own research
Financial Times
INSEAD