Ms Schwartz says a quota will help create a database of capable women who are not part of established business networks.

“I have very strong opinions about this debate,” she told Business Daily. “I’m in favour of quotas.”

Read article here

Source:  heraldsun.com.au  |  Nicole Lindsay

Ms Watkins is currently CEO of private investment group and funds manager Bennelong Group, where she runs a portfolio of domestic and international businesses.
“Alison Watkins brings considerable experience in agriculture, food processing and retailing to GrainCorp, and a great breadth of Australian and international senior executive and non-executive experience,” GrainCorp chairman Don Taylor said in a statement on Tuesday. “She will take up her position from August 9.”

Click here to download the announcement

More than 430 outstanding women have won acclaim and significant profile for their achievements, courage and leadership capabilities in business since the Awards began in 1995. Past winners include Georgina Rinehart, Chairman of Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd (2009), Janine Allis, Founder and Managing Director of Boost Juice Bars (2004) and Julia Ross, Managing Director of Julia Ross Recruitment (2002).

The Awards offer more than $200,000 in overall cash and prizes, as well as the honour of winning Australia’s most prestigious business women’s prize and joining an alumni of outstanding past winners.

To nominate yourself or other inspirational business women visit: www.telstrabusinesswomensawards.com or call1800 817 536 during business hours. Nominations and entries open today and close on 21 June 2010. State and territory winners in the five Award categories will be chosen between 14 September and 12 October and the national Awards ceremony for the 2010 Telstra Australian Business Women’s Awards will be held on 11 November.

www.telstrabusinesswomensawards.com

The women will be mentored by 56 chairmen and senior directors from Australia’s 200 biggest listed companies.

The institute says the latest figures show that women make up only 8.3 per cent of board directors among ASX 200 companies.

However, the AICD’s chief executive, John Colvin, says the program’s success should not be judged solely on how many extra women it helps into board positions.

“When the top chairmen in Australia get behind something like this, that’s a huge signal, I think, to the rest of the boards throughout Australia and, quite frankly, boards everywhere that where we are is not good enough and that we have to improve it,” he told reporters.

The Business Council of Australia launched a similar mentoring program for management positions last month, but John Colvin says the moves are not intended as a response to recent pressure for legislation to introduce quotas.

“We can do what we can do, and other people can assess and see whether they need to do anything else,” he added.

“But there is quite a lot of enthusiasm for this general diversity aspect, and I actually think it’s the mood change and the cultural change which is the most important thing and has the most long lasting effect.”

The institute says it had no problems finding mentors, and that no one it approached declined to volunteer.

The list includes the chairmen of some of Australia’s largest companies, including Elizabeth Bryan from Caltex, Roger Corbett from Fairfax Media, Catherine Livingstone from Telstra and Elizabeth Alexander from CSL.

The AICD says it had more applicants for the program than places, but will hold other events and initiatives to assist women who missed out on the program to further their careers.

When asked if the institute may extend the mentoring program to other under-represented groups among ASX 200 boards, such as people from a more diverse range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, the AICD’s chairman Richard Lee responded that addressing the gender gap was the number one priority.

“I think in the current debate, certainly the current debate in corporate Australia and around government, when people say diversity, what is in the front of their mind is gender, and I think quite rightly,” he replied.

“That’s not to say that there aren’t other challenges in the diversity space, but I think the gender diversity on boards, and this has been pretty well researched, is an important nut to crack.”

This is surely good news, but not according to WOB.  Because the peoportion on women on the boards of S&P/ASX 200 companies has remained more or less static at 8.7 per cent, the progress achieved elsewhere has been dismissed as irrelevant.

Read article here

Source:  brw.com.au  |  Leo D’Angelo Fisher

If companies failed to do so, the ACSI would press for regulatory change, ACSI president Michael O’Sullivan warned yesterday.

“If there is not a major shift in that time — the full three-year board electorate cycle — we will press for regulatory change,” he said. “Women have reached leadership positions in government, public service, science, education and the professions, but corporate boards remain an island of recalcitrance.”

He said ASCI would expect every ASX 200 company to have at least two women directors by 2014. The ACSI represents more than 41 funds, including the not-for-profit superannuation sector which collectively invests some $250 billion in funds.

Between 2001 and 2009, there was a dip in the representation of women on Australian boards, according to a study commissioned by the ACSI.

Women accounted for only 8.3 per cent of directors of top ASX 200 companies, which “confirms deterioration in recent years of female representation on these company boards”, the report said.

Mr O’Sullivan rejected the argument that there were not enough women candidates.

“There are high-calibre women available, but you will not find them if you refuse to look,” he said.

In boardrooms and executive suites across Australia, there are almost no women in the top ranks of our biggest companies. And it seems to be a peculiarly Australian problem; our overseas counterparts, including the US, the UK, South Africa and New Zealand, are doing much better.

The Big Chair – Read More