The share of women appointed to public-company boards of directors has risen markedly in recent years (see the figure for the rise in Fortune 500 companies, for example), but in the United States and Europe, female chairs are still rare.)
Indeed, at the end of 2018, there were only 30 female chairs among the Fortune 500 and the FTSE 100 combined, though the overall shares of board seats held by women were 22.5% and 29.0% respectively.
by Bonnie W. Gwin and Victoria S. Reese
For Heidrick & Struggles
Turnover among board chairs at large companies is, of course, slower than the turnover of board seats overall, but that alone doesn’t explain the low numbers. In our experience, in a non-crisis transition, many nominating committees are reluctant to appoint chairs who have not been CEOs or held similar roles. Yet given the increasingly powerful evidence that female leadership is correlated with high corporate performance—as well as the increase in pressure for diversity from the full range of stakeholders (including investors, regulators, and the public)—companies need to diversify at the chair level. We interviewed a number of female board chairs from around the world to gain their insights on landing—and succeeding in—the role of chair (see sidebar, “About the interviewees”).
The female board chairs we spoke with included Kathleen Cooper, chair of the nominating and governance committee, and former chair of the board, of the Williams Companies; Elizabeth Ashburn Duke, chair of Wells Fargo & Company; Maryellen Herringer, former chair of ABM Industries; Cressida Hogg, chair of Landsec; Cynthia Jamison, chair of Tractor Supply; Marjorie Magner, chair of Accenture; Elaine Rosen, chair of Assurant; Sheila Penrose, chair of Jones Lang LaSalle; Jane Shaw, former chair of Intel Corporation; Elizabeth Tallett, chair of Anthem; May Tan, chair of CLP Holdings and MSIG Insurance HK; and Phyllis Yale, chair of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and former chair of Kindred Healthcare.
Getting to the top spot
Overcoming cultural norms came up in our conversations with several chairs when talking about the path to the chair position. Becoming chair, these women said, requires a degree of self-assertion that historically women on boards may have been reluctant to exhibit. This reluctance likely stems from the deep-seated (and at times conflicting) expectations of how women in positions of power should behave and how much their views should matter. “How, as a woman, do you voice a strong opinion or insist on a point without being thought shrill?” asks Cressida Hogg, chair of UK-based Landsec, a property-management company. Taking the reins also requires the self-confidence to overcome any lingering “impostor syndrome” that keeps some women from fully appreciating their own qualifications. “You have to step through the self-doubt,” says Hogg, “and take on any leadership role on the board you can.” Men typically have fewer qualms about their abilities, and any hesitation on the part of a female board leader may prove decisive in how she is perceived.
