10 Proactive questions every board member should be asking
Harvard Business Reviwe, April 2021
Being a board member isn’t easy. You have responsibility for a company but limited means to really understand it — and that understanding is often mediated by management. Boards only see what they’re presented with and can easily become passive recipients of agendas created by powerful CEOs and senior executives. In this Harvard Businss Review Article, Andrew White, Tazim Essani and Eric Wilkinson explore the 10 questions that can enable boards to change from passive to active and from reactive to transformational. These questions may not make you popular, but they can enable change at the level of individual board members and the board as a whole.
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Research: Adding Women to the C-Suite Changes How Companies Think
by Corinne Post, Boris Lokshin and Christophe Boone, Harvard Business Review, April 2021
It’s well known that firms with greater gender diversity among senior leadership perform better. But what’s less clear is why exactly that is. What are the specific mechanisms that drive the positive business outcomes associated with increasing the number of women in the C-suite? In this piece, the authors share new research that explores exactly how the addition of female executives shifts companies’ strategic approach to innovation. Based on an analysis of more than 150 companies, the authors found that when women join the C-suite they actually shift how the C-suite thinks about innovation, ultimately enabling these firms to consider a wider variety of strategies for creating value.
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The State of Gender Equity on Boards
Russell Reynolds Associates, March 2021
Around the world, a number of countries are taking steps to encourage or mandate improved gender diversity in the boardroom. Those efforts vary by country, as does their effectiveness and impact. This paper takes a look at what is occurring in six countries, hears from female directors about what they are encountering, and provides recommendations to boards on steps they can take to improve both the diversity and inclusion of their board of directors. Read more here.
2020 Fortune Global 500 list hits all time diversity low
August 2020
The 2020 Fortune Global 500 List, released on 10 August, shows that woman run just 13 out of the 500 top companies globally - one less than last year. And this year is the first year since 2014, when the data was first collected, in which zero women of colour made the list.
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Project Based Advisory Boards
Advisory Board Centre, July 2020
WOB spoke to members of the accessible arts community about the opportunities for serving on advisory entities. The truth is that the benefits cut both ways; organisations receive advice from a group of people with experience and / or expertise in niche areas (such as science, arts or disability) and the individual is given an opportuntiy to influence a board and inform a strategy or project. Cooincidentally, our London based WOB Australia Director, MarySue Rogers, alerted us to this article on project based advisory boards.
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Enforcing gender quotas increases boardroom diversity and quality
University of London, July 2020
Study finds that an organization that is required by national law to have significant female representation on its board of directors sees higher diversity and skills than those in countries that simply advise on quotas, according to research from City, University of London's Business School.
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The Director Penalty Regime extends to GST
Association of Corporate Counsel, 14 Feb 2020
From 1 April 2020, the recently passed Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2019 could make directors personally liable for their company’s unpaid taxes and can prevent a director’s resignation if the resignation were to leave their company without a director. The law also seeks to improve the accountability of resigning directors by preventing directors from improperly backdating resignations.
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Iceland proposes a bill to fine boards on gender imbalance
Icelandic Review 14 February 2020
In Iceland a new bill proposes a daily fine on companies whose corporate boards are not comprised of a legally mandated gender balance—namely that no gender may have less than 40% representation.
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Are you ready to serve on a board?
Article by HBR, 31 January 2020
Harvard Business Review looks at what leaders aspiring to board roles can do to prepare and position themselves for success and how to develop boardroom capital?
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