SHELLY ANN MOHAMMED, head of ACCA Caribbean
Recently, our chief executive Helen Brand gave a speech at an event about women in governance. The timely and relevant topic was Why we need more women on boards.
For ACCA, changing culture is crucial to correct the under-representation of women on boards. There is a commercial, reputational and ethical imperative to make this happen, especially as the Forbes 500 list of the world's biggest companies reveals that only 41 have CEOs who are women. That's just eight per cent.
The picture is patchy around the world. In a study of leading economies by the Catalyst group, which advises businesses on advancing the inclusion of women in the workplace, France has the highest ratio of female directors. Forty-four per cent of board members were women. That's partly because France has had a legal quota for women on boards since 2010.
At the other end of the scale, Japan reported just eight per cent of women directors. Interestingly, the study also showed an increase in women's representation in every country, sometimes small, but an increase nonetheless.
Slow, perceptible change is happening - and this is down to cultural change. There is now a wider acceptance that women should have equal access to opportunity as men in their work - including in the boardroom, if that's where their ambitions and skills take them.
Old attitudes which discriminate against women are increasingly viewed as outmoded, outdated, and in some jurisdictions illegal. It has taken a generation to break down these views and challenge the status quo.
The best businesses know that to ignore the rights of women to claim equal opportunities to men is to risk serious reputational damage. In that sense, the right of women to take the place which their abilities deserve is a business issue as much as it is a moral one. Far-sighted companies are increasingly aware that to stay relevant and respected, they must accurately reflect the aspirations and the attitudes of all their stakeholders, which includes investors, customers and staff.
There is also growing evidence in recent years that more women on boards equals better financial performance.
A McKinsey report in 2018 based on results from 1,000 companies across 12 countries showed a link between numbers of female executives and profitability. It ranked the firms according to numbers of women on their executive teams.
It concluded that the top quarter were 21 per cent more likely to make above-average profits in their market than the bottom quarter, and that the difference was consistent across the world
In other words, the report found that having gender diversity on executive teams positively correlated with higher profitability across geographies.
But what about targets and quotas? Over recent years, there has been a long-standing debate about their use. They can certainly highlight inequality, but lasting change comes from altering cultural attitudes. It's about building a respect for gender equality - equality for all people - into
