The 30% Club celebrates its 2nd Anniversary...and we take a glimpse at how super funds are tracking
Last night the Australian chapter of the 30% Club - a group of chairs, directors and business leaders taking action to increase gender diversity on Australian ASX listed boards - celebrated its second anniversary, hosted by Bloomberg, in the firm's sustainable office space at No.1 Bligh Street, Sydney.
A panel discussion chaired by Haidi Lun, the Sydney anchor for "Daybreak Australia", Bloomberg Television's flagship morning program, facilitated a lively discussion with a focus on how Australian companies can move forward to bridge the gender gap.
Some insights from the evening
Patricia Cross, Chair, CSC, Non-executive director, Macquarie Group Limited, Aviva PLC and Chair of the Australian Chapter of the 30% Club
"The biggest problem is referring to things as 'non-financial' targets because, as the chair of a big superannuation fund, I have to say, the targets that are not necessarily the 'net profit after tax for the year' targets but are instead around customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, diversity, remuneration practices and ESG policies, demonstrate more about the long term viability, sustainability and potential for wealth creation in a company. I think those are very 'financial'."
Dean Paatsch, Director, Ownership Matters
"We're doing ourselves a disservice if we don't recognise that there are soft targets and that bonuses are too easy to get in the aggregate...Why are CFO's getting bonuses for reviewing the balance sheet? Why is someone getting 5% on their pay for being a 'male champion of change'? If that is in your value set, why do we need to reward it? I'm not saying that we should chuck the baby out with the bath water but we do need to acknowledge that this is an issue and have a discussion about it."
"The board issues struggle for attention amongst a lot of the money managers because a lot of them don't perceive boards as adding any value. Someone that I was speaking with the other day referred to their board as the 'tea and scones brigade' so to get someone like him to take the leap [towards gender diversity] is really hard."
Kathryn Fagg, Non-executive director, Boral, Reserve Bank of Australia & Incitec Pivot Limited
"There is absolutely no shortage of women who are qualified to go on boards, it's just a matter of people making sure that those options are available to them."
"I think what has been most compelling here is the number of Chairmen that have been willing to say, "What happens around the board is actually better now and we are making better decisions." I know in one of the companies that I'm on, the CEO has said that seeing greater gender balance on the board has lead him to realise that he needs to have greater gender balance amongst the executive team."
Adam Tindall, Chief Executive Officer, AMP Capital
"It doesn't happen on its own. You really have to intervene to encourage women to step up and take these leadership roles...another role that the boards should play is around succession planning. They need to take an intervention approach to make sure that a number of the people that will be ready to succeed a current CEO will be women."
Emily Gordon, Head of Australia and New Zealand for Bloomberg
"At Bloomberg we invest in diversity and inclusion because our people are our most important asset. Studies have repeatedly shown that having more women in senior leadership positions can lead to higher employee satisfaction, increased innovation and better returns. Recent KPMG research shows that female CEOs in the top 300 Australian companies delivered a 9% increase in 2016's revenue compared to the group wide average of just 0.5%."
How are Australian super funds tracking?
Industry Moves has covered 138 board appointments made by super funds since the beginning of 2014 - 35 per cent of these appointees were female.
The comparison report below shows the female representation on 12 of Australia's largest super fund boards across three sectors. Though the percentage of females has increased since 2014, there has been little change on some of the funds which have been below the target of 30%. In one case, female representation has fallen to zero, highlighting the difficulty in understanding progress made by individual funds when discussing only the industry average.
Take a closer look at the stats...
Watch the AICD's video for International Women's Day 2017 about the excuses that some boards gave for not appointing women.
