Business Heads Give Up a Day to Network with Top Women - Building Gender Balanced Business

The chairmen of J Sainsbury, RBS, Vodafone, and Legal & General are just some of the leading business chiefs attending the first event organised by the Professional Boards Forum in the UK on May 5th, 2009,designed to introduce businesses to potential women board directors.

Norwegian forum sets up in the UK
Founded in Norway by Elin Hurvenes, the forum provides a unique setting for Chairmen and CEOs to meet highly talented women senior managers. The women who attend will be able to show what they are made of in a simulated board discussion.

The 40% quota for women on corporate boards in Norway, driven through by the government between 2002 and 2007, after which a law was put in place to force companies to comply, provided the context for the Professional Boards Forum to provide a much needed service. Companies had to find women to add to their boards, and Hurvene’s forum provided an excellent setting to find them. From 1993 to 2008, the proportion of women on boards in Norway shot up from 3% to 43%.

All the signs are that the experiment in Norway has been a success, and next year the government will hold a conference to present all the latest research on the quota and its effects on company performance.

Demand for change in the UK
But there is no such quota in the UK and, as yet, no overwhelming support for one. In spite of that, the sheer business logic of needing to do something about the under-representation of women at senior levels persuaded a number of UK business heads to send a letter to the UK newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, in October 2008, expressing their urgent desire to see companies take more advantage of the female talent base in their leadership teams.

They wrote: “We are living through extraordinary times, and extraordinary times call for innovative solutions. We are convinced it is essential to accelerate the progress of women into senior positions, given the UK’s need to deploy the best talent available. This need is greater than ever in the current economic climate.”

Four of the signatories to the Telegraph letter are attending the forum in London (Roger Carr, Philip Hampton, Rob Margetts, and David Reid). The forum is being organised by Elin Hurvenes and her business partner in the UK, Jane Scott.

Roger Carr, Chairman of Centrica plc and Cadbury plc, one of the signatories to the Telegraph letter, will deliver a talk at the forum on the changing role of the Non-Executive Director. He is quoted as saying: “In my experience women add considerable value to the boardroom discussion. They help generate a more team oriented and thoughtful atmosphere that produces better board work. For that simple reason I want both genders represented on any board I chair.”