Women ‘drive success’
COMPANIES perform better when they’ve got women in senior management positions, a business forum has been told.
Carolyn Kay, a non-executive director at Commonwealth Bank, said gender diversity should be viewed as a management essential.
”It’s important for women to be in decision-making levels to help reshape the culture of organisations,” Ms Kay said at the Women in Leadership forum in Sydney yesterday.
Ms Kay said several studies have shown that companies with three or more women in senior management roles outperformed those without any women at the top.
”There are many studies – by Harvard, Catalyst [and] McKinsey to name a few – that show strong correlation between organisations with women at the top and the relative success of those organisations,” she said.
Ms Kay said it was important for Australia’s economic health that women were employed in executive positions ”for increasing the tax base, supporting the ageing population and lifting the household savings rate”.
Statistics from the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency show that females were 29 per cent of all new appointments to ASX 200 companies in 2011, compared to 25 per cent in 2010.
Tina Brothers, executive director of the Reibey Institute, said that corporate culture change could be achieved if it came from the top.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/women-drive-success-20120220-1tjl5.html#ixzz1n9EKaGvm
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