There’s little more that is beneficial for a woman seeking an ASX-listed board career than being mentored by a powerful chairperson like David Gonski, Elizabeth Bryan or Roger Corbett.
It’s worked for Ilana Atlas, who’s previously been mentored by Gonski and now sits on the boards of Coca-Cola Amatil, Westfield and Suncorp. It’s worked for Jacqueline Hey, mentored by Ziggy Switkowski, and Fiona Balfour mentored by former David Jones chairman Bob Savage, who have each since picked up further board appointments. And it’s worked for numerous other women who’ve participated in the Australian Institute of Company Directors’ Chairmen’s Mentoring Program.
Indeed the program may be directly contributing to an upward trend in the number of women on the boards of ASX 200 companies. The 2012 GMI Ratings’ Women on Boards survey cited the program – along with the ASX Corporate Governance Council’s Principles and Recommendation on Diversity – as a key reason behind Australia’s one-year increase in female board representation (up to March 2012). Australia was found to have the second best improvement of the countries surveyed, behind France. In the three years since the Chairmen’s program began, the proportion of women appointed to ASX 200 boards has risen from 5% to 25%.
The high-profile mentoring program, currently calling on applications for its third intake, is generating some powerful results on the ASX200. But is it one that’s open to a truly diverse range of women?
When looking at the selection criteria, it’s clear that a good spectrum of women could meet the essential criteria (which includes being able to confirm they’re actively seeking non-executive board positions and able to accept an offer to sit on a listed board), but the pool would narrow significantly under the desirable criteria.
The application form for the program states that “ideally” mentee applicants will have at least three years’ non-executive board experience and at least eight years’ experience as: a senior executive in a large company (private, listed, unlisted or NFP); or a senior professional advisor to large company boards; and/or be a public servant; and/or the owner or founder of a significant business with directorship responsibilities.
It’s hard to see how diverse the list of previous mentees has been as it’s kept confidential – aside from a small handful of women who’ve shared their personal experiences with the program. However, a spokesperson from AICD told Women’s Agenda that the previous lists of women selected have covered a range of skills and experience – not just with large corporate and listed companies – in the past. She referred to some of the mentees selected as including CEOs of small NFPs, as well as business owners and other women chosen from the consulting and health care sectors.
However, it’s also clear the program is not a development initiative and seeks women with senior experience. “The mentors are extremely senior and the mentees are very senior women with long and distinguished careers,” the spokesperson said.
There are around 70 mentors involved in the program including Roger Corbett, Mark Johnson, Kevin McCann, David Mortimer, Don Argus, David Crawford and Bob Every. It’s refreshing to see the group covers 23 women including Catherine Livingstone, Jillian Broadbent, Belinda Hutchinson, Jillian Segal and Dr Helen Nugent. It adds up to a percentage of women involved as mentors that’s much higher than the 15.5% of ASX 200 board seats currently occupied by women.
As Company Directors’ CEO John Colvin noted, with less than two women on the boards of two-thirds of ASX 200 companies, there’s plenty of room for improvement.
But there are plenty of board opportunities beyond the ASX 200 for women. And programs on offer to help women pick them up — including the AICD scholarships, the Federal Government’s Boardlinks program and professional development programs run by Women on Boards.
Perhaps you don’t meet the AICD’s full list of “ideal” selection criteria just yet – but that’s no reason not to apply. The broader the pool of candidates on offer then, hopefully, the more diverse range of women we’ll see eventually achieving listed board positions.
Show them what you can do now. Or go get that additional experience needed to prepare a compelling application in the future.
Do you believe you’d qualify for the AICD program?
Applications for the AICD mentoring program close Friday, 15th March.