Mentors help female board aspirants

THE Australian Institute of Company Directors has enlisted the help of some of Western Australia’s heavyweight directors in a new push to increase the number of women in the boardrooms of the nation’s top listed companies.

Michael Chaney, Peter Mansell and Rick Crabb are among the very experienced chairmen and senior directors who have agreed to provide a mentoring role to more than 60 women around Australia who are seen as having the potential and desire to succeed on boards of ASX 200 companies.

Other local directors named as mentors include Peter Leonhardt, Paul Kopejtka, Rick Crabb, Neil Hamilton, David Humann and Geoff Wedlock.

The AICD said that, according to the latest available data, the current proportion of women on major company boards in Australia was 8.3 per cent of ASX 200 company directors.

Mr Chaney told WA Business News he was mentoring an executive in Sydney, having had his first meeting last week.

“There are too few women in senior management and board positions in Australia,” said Mr Chaney who chairs National Australia Bank and Woodside Petroleum.

“We lag the rest of the world.”

Mr Chaney said he has stated publically that he would like to see half NAB’s board as female to better represent its workforce and customers, as well as bring diversity to the thinking around the directors’ table.

AICD national director Fiona Harris said the initiative came when the organisation’s board challenged management to come up with a meaningful approach to solving the issue.

“There is a lot of frustration from people like me that with more women coming into the (senior management) funnel you would think they would end up on boards; that has not happened,” she said.

“We need a paradigm shift.”

Ms Harris said that the mentoring program would need at least a year to make progress but believed it would result in more women board members, as well as offering the men involved a networking opportunity through which to identify female board talent.