Women on Corporate Boards

The topic of women on corporate boards if one of great interest to me, both as someone who has written on matters of corporate goverenance and as someone who has served on the board of directors of a public company.

My starting point is that there is value to having women being represented on corporate boards of directors, just as there is value in representation on boards by members of racial minorities.  That is, that we should be just as bothered by having corporate boards comprised exclusively or virtually exclusively by white males only, as by having the Supreme Court or the highest positions in other branches of government or the highest positions in the hierarchy of any other institution so comprised.  I'm not sure I think it is just a question of equity, as Mark suggests.  Rather, I tend to agree with Lisa's broad point, based on my experience in various walks of life, including both academic and business, that groups with a critical mass of women are different from groups without such a critical mass.

Whether that difference would translate into "better" corporate governance (a term we haven't defined, as Mark points out) is a different matter.  Based on my limited board experience (serving on the board of one public company, during the first couple of years of which service I was the only woman) and the boards with which I dealt when in legal practice, I don't disagree with Mark that women bring the same professional, business and fiduciary ethos to the position as do men.  However, it is also my (completely nonscientific, anecdotal) sense that there may be issues women are more likely to raise than are men.

One thing I think is beyond dispute is that there are a number of well-qualified women to serve on corporate boards.  The comment of Michael's colleague that women such as academics have experience on some but not all issues that a board may face doesn't seem to me a persuasive one.  That is true of virtually all board members.  When I was on that board (as an academic who in my prior legal practice had handling executive compensation and benefits matters), no other person on the board approached my experience and knowledge in those areas.  So there I brought more to bear in our discussions, whereas on other matters, other board members were more knowledgable.  The pool of qualified candidates is there.