"We need to strengthen the role of women as directors, the performance of the companies on whose boards we serve, and the use of best practices in corporate governance globally. We need to move together to create boards as they should be – multi-gender, multi-skilled, multi-national, multi-ethnic, and multi-generational. That’s how we’ll make a difference around the table, in the world, and for the world."
- Women on Board
"Great directors go the edge of business issues, openly bringing up the unanswered questions, and encouraging discussion… Visionary boards spend time on forward looking issues, not just backward looking ones."- Women on Board, page 193
Reading this book has given me a better grasp of the complex world of corporate boards. Having a board that performs well and that is visionary is quite an accomplishment. A board is a team. It needs to work together and is in constant need of nourishment to keep growing. It requires a tremendous amount of work to be able to cope with elements that can be local based, national or global in nature.
Being a visionary is key to long-term success. How do you know if a board is ‘visionary’, up with the times, and adapted to our changing world? Here are few points taken from a list of self-assessment questions to help you find out.
As a board member, you can contribute to making a board visionary. It’s important to understand and recognize what has been accomplished, but it is also very important to look ahead.
"Putting women board isn’t about ‘feeling good’ or ‘doing good’. It’s absolutely great for business."- Fritzi Woods, Women on Board, page 50
It’s written in black and white that having women on boards is actually great for business. In fact, when representation of women on boards is 30% or more, a company outperforms those with fewer women on the board. The authors go over several reasons why it makes so much sense to have more diverse boards:
Are you ready to sit on a board? Here are a few questions to help you find out. If you answer yes to all, you’re ahead of most.
The responsibilities of a board member are enormous; the challenge even greater for women. As Pernille Sppiers-Lopez, former US President of IKEA suggests: “A woman can spend many, many years trying to break the glass ceiling and, when she does, she often finds a culture and agenda created for men by men. It is often an intense and exclusive culture and not the best environment for women to thrive in. It is the same in the board room – we need to change the culture in the meeting room as well.”
With this in mind now, I truly am in awe of women who are sitting on boards. Bravo!
"You were not chosen randomly… You are there because you have value to give, and you were selected because of that value even if you think you don’t have the qualifications. So, be confident in your own worth and your own knowledge"- Yolanda Auza, Women on Board, page 119
This book is an invitation to women to step up to the plate and seek directorship. It is a guide filled with tips and advice to assist them in all the important steps of that journey. But what happens when you get there? What do you do? Where do you start? Here is some sound advice:
Women on Board is filled with action tips, tools such as the skills set matrix and the biography template. There are many quotes and real life examples to learn from. We are presented with passages of women (and some men) telling us about their true life experiences on boards. This makes the book so human and compelling.
Nancy Calderon is a Global Lead Partner with KPMG and has written Women on Board with Susan Stautberg of WomenCorporateDirectors. Nancy’s vision is to share her insights from her board service, from California to New York to India, and to motivate future women directors to frame their experiences earlier in their careers in order to be best qualified to serve on a corporate board. For those board members already serving, the stories and anecdotes from Nancy, Susan and numerous other board members will help you and your board excel.
