The chair of the board is technically the most powerful position in a company, but it’s not one that women are anywhere close to achieving in equal numbers to men, who hold 89.5 per cent of such positions across the ASX 200.
Women are also far outnumbered at the CEO level, with June 2022 figures from Chief Executive Women showing that just 18 of the top 300 listed companies have a female CEO. Of the 28 CEO appointments to such entities made in the previous financial year, only four went to women.
The latest figures from the Australian Institute of Company Directors this week reveal that women now make up 35.7 per cent of ASX 200 board directors and accounted for almost 45 per cent of all board appointments in 2022.
However, four ASX 200 companies end 2022 without a single woman on their boards – all in the mining and resources space. They include De Grey Mining Limited, Core Lithium Limited, Sayonara Mining Limited and Capricorn Metals Limited.
As for the slow progress for women at the Chair level, AICD Managing Director and CEO Mark Rigotti said we’re unlikely to see significant change in the near future, given having a previous role as a CEO is the most likely path to chairing an ASX board (with 51 per cent of ASX 300 chairs having a career background as a CEO).
Nicola Wakefield Evans, Chair of the 30% Club Australia, said that “the time to act is now” on shifting the gender balance on CEOs, and organisations must take meaningful steps to identify talented women to fill executive roles that can ultimately support their path to CEO.
“Boards need to hold themselves accountable for identifying potential female CEOs and any barriers that exist for making this possible. The momentum that has been generated on boards can serve as a lesson for what’s possible with real and meaningful action,” she said.
The final AICD report for 2022 also finds that 141 ASX 200 boards now have at least 30 per cent women, while 195 boards have hit the milestone across the ASX 300. And while women hold just 10.5 per cent of chair roles on the ASX 200 and 11 per cent of such roles on the ASX 300, a significantly larger (39 per cent) of board committees are chaired by women.