Women Leaders = Greater Returns On Investment
40 years ago, it would have been rare to find women running, much less owning their own businesses in Australia. In fact, if we look at my career choice, to be a Trade Commissioner for Australia, it would actually have been impossible!
Fortunately times have changed, at least in Australia with women currently running about 1/3rd of Australia’s 1.9 million small businesses, and almost 50% of the home-based businesses (which is also one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy). And again, if we look at my career choice in the public service, women hold around 36% of senior executive positions.
But we still have much to do when compared to some other countries like Norway, USA and the UK . In the US surveys show that 89% of companies on the S&P 500 have at least 1 woman on the board and 64% have more than one. In the UK the figures are closer to 77% of FTSE 100 companies having at least 1 woman.
Yet similar figures for Australia show only about 29% of boards have at least one female (top 500 companies). And worse, for our top 200 listed companies women represent 8% of Board members, 6% of CEO’s and only 2% of Chairpersons.