Board level diversity continues to be very very limited. Even where Chairpersons are a minority (I continue to wonder that we call women a minority), who could be considered to be more inclined to opening up their Board appointments, we are still not seeing results. There continues to be an important imbalance in the number of women in our boardrooms,
sources of which do exist.
There are many examples, but I will highlight just a few where Directors were appointed during the tenure of these Chairpersons:
Merrill Lynch’s Stan O’Neal, appointed Chairman in April 2003, 4 new Directors with 1 being a woman.
Time Warner’s Richard Parsons, appointed Chairman in January 2003, 1 new Director appointed, with 0 women.
Hewlett Packard’s Carly Fiorina, Chairperson since 1999 until this year, 7 new Directors appointed with only 1 being a woman.
I suppose that there is some cause for celebration, with American Express’ Ken Chenault, Chairman since before 2001, 5 Director appointments, with 2 being women. In this context, not bad going.
Still a long way to go!
OAM
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