After a new California law passed this month requiring all public companies to have at least one woman on their board of directors by the end of 2019, theBoardlist and Qualtrics surveyed 285 business leaders and board members asking them to weigh in on their sentiments about board quotas.
theBoardlist is a curated talent marketplace that connects highly qualified women leaders with opportunities to serve on private and public company boards. Starting with the technology industry and now expanded across many verticals, theBoardlist offers public and private companies a platform to accelerate opportunities for women to achieve at the highest levels.
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Supporters of the law argue that diverse companies are more profitable, women have already proven they are equal, and quotas are the only way to ensure diversity. While women overwhelmingly support the law, only 40% of men do. Politics also matters. Less than half of Republicans support the law compared to nearly 85% of Democrats.
I was extremely excited to chat with theBoardlist’s CEO Shannon Gordon about the survey results to understand how business leaders and board members are reacting to this new legislation and learn about theBoardlist’s future plans to achieve boardroom parity.
Hayley Leibson: What are your thoughts on the passage of the bill?
Shannon Gordon: It’s a very exciting piece of legislation and it changes the game not only for California, but for the country. I say that because we’ve seen an increase in search activity, but not only from California. It has had a halo effect on companies that are based in other geographies.
One thing we know about this legislation is that it will change the numbers. There is plenty of evidence from Europe that quotas change the numbers. There will be another interesting outcome as well. On average, the women that have board experience on theBoardlist are serving on an average of three boards which means that they’re busy. They are maxed out on capacity. So as more board seats open up, we’re going to see some new talent come to the fore.
Leibson: What are the pros and cons of quotas in your opinion?
Gordon: My point of view is that, of course, I think we’d all prefer that we didn’t have to have legislation; that we already had parity in boardrooms. Now that it’s here, there are certain things that we can expect from it. There has been plenty of pushback and backlash, but we’ll see if the opponents are successful at getting the bill revisited. There is some level of frustration about what’s considered government overreach. There’s frustration about the focus on gender versus diversity more broadly.
There are plenty of people on the other side that say, “Hey, we want to make gender parity by 2055.” There are almost 100 companies in California that have no women on their boards at all. This is intended to be an accelerator. I actually just met the senator that authored the bill, Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson and she said, “Let’s leverage this legislation as an accelerator, as igniting the progress and shortening that timeline to seeing this kind of representation.” The reality now is that it is a law.
Leibson: Do you think a law will expand this in the future to include minorities? What are your thoughts on that?
Gordon: I hope not. I hope that for those that are frustrated about government overreach, that we don’t have to wait for the government to put more laws in place to further stipulate this kind of diversity in the boardroom. My hope is that we start to put women in board seats. Ideally that is representative of intersectional diverse groups. There is no reason why the women that get placed can’t be African American women or representative of any other diverse group.
As companies see the value of having these different perspectives at the table, my hope is that it naturally ignites a cycle of diversifying boardrooms more broadly than just gender. I fundamentally believe that’s where we need to head whether or not it’s government imposed or if it’s voluntary.
Leibson: Have you found that the founders and CEOs you speak with are really trying to increase the diversity within their organizations to be reflective of their employees and customers? Any meaningful change happening here?
Gordon: The reality is people call us and say, “We’re looking for the best talent. Here are the specific things about our unique company that we need in core competencies. We want expertise in X, Y, or Z to solve the issues we have. ” That is almost always how the conversation starts. Typically they also say, “The reason why we’re calling you, theBoardlist, knowing that you have an all-female candidate pool is that we think that having a diverse board is the way we can get to that best talent and ensure that we have the best board possible.”
Many of them also referred to the desire to be reflective of both their customer base and their employee base. It’s a real theme. Very often when people are looking for independent directors, one of the things they look for is someone who can represent the voice of the customer and has a fundamental understanding of their customer base. Gender is not the only way in which you can relate to a customer base, but it can be an important perspective to bring to the table.
Leibson: Do you ever receive pushback about this initiative from the founders and companies you talk to?
Gordon: We actually have men on our platform. They aren’t candidates for board service, but they endorse women from their network to be on theBoardlist. We surveyed them and found that those who are opposed to the legislation, their primary reason is a concern about government engagement in the building of private and public company teams.