Norway’s Gender Quota for Boards Is a “Tentative Success” - Building Gender Balanced Business

• Thanks to a 2006 law, Norway has the largest percentage of women on corporate boards in the world, and quadruple the average for the rest of Europe.

• But what impact has the septupling of the number of women directors had on the country and its corporations? Tentatively a success, reports the Financial Times.

• An example of such praise: Idar Kreutzer, the male chief executive of Storebrand, the largest insurance group in Norway was quoted as saying, “As a principle, I don’t like quotas. But I have not been able to find any big problems with the legislation in practice.”

• Among the benefits of the law is how much broader nomination committees now search for directors, showing them the wealth of women qualified to serve on boards.

• The new look for boards is not just female but also younger and slightly better educated. And while 2 in 10 female directors hold more than one seat, 4 in 10 men do so.

• Studies differ on the impact of the new diversity in Norway, but proponents note that women are more likely to ask questions on the boards than men, being less bound by convention.

• But critics worry whether a select group of women is creating a replacement for the old-boys’ network, whether the push for women on the board has hurt efforts at gender equality in other corporate realms, and whether less experienced directors could be more easily fooled by executives.

• Indeed, the rise of women such as Mimi Berdal give rise to such concerns: Berdal, a former corporate lawyer, now is on 12 boards and the FT calls her “one of what have become known as the “golden skirts’, a group of Norwegian women who have become full-time non-executive directors on the back of the law.” But given the larger number of multiple-board men, this concern seems misplaced.

• A more compelling issue is whether women are being drawn to boards instead of executive posts: Fewer than 10% of Norwegian executives are women.

• Berdal does not dismiss the worries but focuses on the benefits of the law: “I agree they are important issues. But I don’t see how gender diversity is detrimental.”

The Financial Times Report