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Ask that woman to the corporate party
Melanie McDonagh6 May 2009
One of the more fashionable theories about the credit crunch is that it wouldn't have happened if women had been in charge.
All that testosterone-driven risk-taking, why, it wasn't women's way of doing business, was it? You can make the suggestion without much fear of contradiction, because of the FTSE 100 companies, only four per cent of the executives on boards are women and only 14 per cent of the non-executive directors.
Bolstering the number of women non-executive directors was the agenda for an event yesterday run by the Professional Boards Forum, which brought together corporate bosses and women candidates. Yep, the bosses were, with a couple of exceptions, men.
Quite what women bring to the corporate party was spelled out by Roger Carr, chairman of Cadbury and Centrica. Women, he declared, "have a different mindset, a different style". That included "attention to detail, a work ethic".
Diversity, he went on, makes boardrooms "more civilised". And, he said pointedly, boards should have more than one woman. (One woman looks like tokenism.) Alison Carnwath, chairman of Land Securities (no, not chair) and MF Global Inc, was more measured. "Like many women, I am fairly open and straightforward and don't panic." That's telling 'em.
All of which raises the question, if women are so brilliant, why aren't there more female non-execs already? Sir Philip Hampton, chairman of Sainsbury's and now RBS thought it was a matter of time: "Women with the right sort of experience have only just got to the age where they can take on the job in sufficient numbers." Alison Carnwath blamed headhunters.
Actually, the qualities that the bosses identified as important - the ability to listen rather than shout, to subsume ego in the interests of the company - had "female" written all over them.
A couple of things struck me. One, no one even suggested Norwegian style quotas as a simple way to remedy the dearth of women. Pointedly, everyone spoke about appointment on MERIT.
The other was that the most successful woman there, Alison Carnwath, had the supreme confidence that comes with an upper class bearing and diction, as well, obviously, as steely competence.
By comparison with education and background, gender may not be the most important thing. Oh, and given this was a group of women potentially in competition, everyone got on really very well.
Reader views (2)
to say that women wld have made better bosses is poppycock. There are women bosses up and down the country who make wrong decisions. People shd succeed based on merit and merit alone. No norwegian style quota system pls.
- Mp, London, 06/05/2009 14:41
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"The credit crunch would not have happened if women were in charge"
Yes, well we all know that women are less prone to overspending than men, don’t we?
After all, it’s men who constantly need to borrow to redecorate, have more children, bigger houses, posher kitchens, drive imported 4x4 gas guzzlers (to show off on the school run) and decorate themselves with slap and fashionable shoes and accessories, isn’t it?
And that’s without the lure of online bingo - or do the advertisers have it all wrong?
More likely it is that men pandering to womens wants largely led to the mess we`re all in now!
- Darius Midwinter, London UK, 06/05/2009 11:10
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