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April 27, 2011
More Women, Better Business
 The evidence continues to mount: companies with more women on boards and in top positions see higher revenue and better results overall.
Catalyst was among the first to break the news a few years back, when a four-year study found “stronger-than-average performance at companies with three or more women board directors.” Wall Street Journal and others recently noted this theory continues to hold true.
“There's plenty of evidence that companies simply perform better with more women and minorities on board,” Accenture’s CMO Roxanne Taylor tells PINK. She adds that female managers tend to focus on long-terms goals, use more caution in decision-making and continually operate with flexibility.
Taylor says building, cultivating and maintaining a diverse workforce is one of the biggest challenges companies face today. “Diverse perspectives,” she explains, “lead to better problem solving.”
Though the benefits have been proven, most companies still fail to promote as many women as men to leadership roles. Of the Fortune 500, the number of female chief executives went down from 15 in 2010 to 11 this year.
MSN Money highlights high-performing women CEOs like Yahoo’s Carol Bartz, who helped boost the company’s shares significantly, and Tamara Lundgreen of Schnitzer Steel, who reportedly “welcomed the challenge of operating a company in a male-dominated industry.”
Bonus PINK Link: Meet Accenture CMO Roxanne Taylor in PINK’s exclusive Top Woman Profile.
By Caroline Cox
"Action is the antidote to despair." Joan Baez
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Comments
Chicken or Egg?
While the correlation is strong between women at the top and financial performance, I'm not sure it's a causal relationship. It is more likely that the best run organizations - those that measure performance and potential on the basis of outcomes more than subjective measures of compatibility - are more likely to get women to the top.
As a matter of fact, a few years ago FORTUNE magazine found that companies with highest concentration of women at the top are “fanatical” about measurement… use “empirical standards, clear goals and frequent reviews to identify and reward high performers.”
That being said, I'm strongly in favor of getting more women to the top for these reasons:
1. The World Economic Forum has found "there is a statistical correlation between gender equality and the level of development of countries as measured by GDP and competitiveness."
2. “…when the proportion of women in senior positions is less than critical mass (generally considered to be 30%) then the culture and the practices of the organisation are unlikely to create a strong pipeline for women.”
3. Women’s earnings rise to 91¢ (versus 77¢ of men's $1.00) in industries in which women reach senior management.
So, let's keep getting smarter about getting women to the top.
Susan Colantuono, CEO & Founder
Leading Women
author No Ceiling, No Walls