Professor of Management and joint holder of the Diversity and Performance Chair, l'ESSEC.

Emmanuelle Gagliardi, managing editor of L/ONTOP, was on hand to moderate the debate.  She led off with a battery of questions:  Will having more women as board members bring emotion to board meetings? Is diversity or gender balance more sought after by boards today? What do you think of the draft French law proposing quotas?

Viviane Neiter responded to the first question by noting that there are CEOs and CFOs, but no marketing or communications directors on boards.  Companies need more transformational leaders and women are well-suited for that. Gender balance is still very much an issue, but right now it is most important to have international experience and there are few women who do.

The draft French law is a good thing because it will force an annual stock-taking of board membership and succession. Women are making more headway in the pharmaceutical and automobile industries, but to meet the future quota of 40%, 169 women will have to become board members in the CAC40 companies and about 1 000 women of listed companies.

Ms Sevin took a different view: "I think of myself as an employee, not as a man or a woman! This is the 6th or 7th law on equality. Can't they come up with something else to make things budge? Women have qualities that are not fully recognized. Women are loyal; they don't leave their jobs. To get more women on boards we need to look lower than the CEO level.

Ms Neiter deplored the fact that there are no incubators for eligible women to facilitate their access to boards. Working for small and medium-sized enterprises is a good way to start off rather than targeting positions of boards of listed companies. Too much of the same kind of expertise is stultifying. As board member of a nanotechnology company, Ms Neiter brought a fresh, layman's point of view. She questioned things hitherto taken for granted by the board, like having a committee made up entirely of scientists. The committee was killed.

Evelyn Sevin listed the competences that in her view boards are in need of today: international experience, integrity, collegiality, and the ability to work on a team. Decisions depend on the industrial strategy and are made on a case by case basis. There is subjectivity involved when looking at competences; some characteristics will be viewed positively in men and negatively in women!

Sometimes you have to fight stereotyping. Junko Takagi recounted how she had had to struggle to be given responsibility for diversity issues in the broadest sense and not limited to intercultural issues or gender diversity.

Ms Neiter recalled how she acquired her first board position with some amusement. I was on a train when two men, who were about to list their company on the stock market, asked me to watch their luggage while they went for coffee. It was over a year later that she ran into them again and impressed them with her knowledge on a highly technical point - knowledge she had acquired the night before! They invited her to be a member of their board illicopresto. I try to never pass up an opportunity, quipped Ms Neiter.

Ms Sevin has some secrets of success of her own. Boards are political and that is good. Men have their own networks where there are no women, but we can play the same games. As a graduate of HEC, one of the elite French schools known as the Grandes Ecoles (HEC began accepting female students in 1973), Ms Sevin became President of a women's alumni group from HEC. I was always an activist. Then she co-founded Grandes Ecoles au Feminine, a network of women graduates from all of these prestigious schools. I realized that it was bigger than just HEC; we are women with diplomas. But I always wanted men to be part of it. It is very important to bring in men with their different ideas. It is a laboratory that should be available to everyone.

The women agreed that being a board member entails a lot of work, at least two days to prepare each board meeting. Availability is of utmost importance, said Ms Neiter. You have to be reachable all the time and accept responsibility for your decisions.

Ms Sevin pointed out that women work so hard at their jobs that they tend to neglect networking.

It is important for women to belong to networks agreed Ms Neiter and it helps to have to have very thick skin if you want to stay the course! Another key feature is training, which strengthen skills and credibility. They say that women need more training, but so do men!

Ms Gagliardi asked the women what they thought boards might look like in 2020.

Ms Neiter: Forty percent of board members will be women. There will be Directors of Human Resources because of the importance of human capital. There will be non-governmental organizations. Boards will be more diversified, more professional and more positive.

Ms Sevin: In 2020 boards will be multi-cultural and this will present a real challenge in terms of management. There will be different nationalities speaking different languages. There will be a greater sensitivity to social concerns.

 

Behind the scenes feedback from members and guests at the event:  
 

Hilary Ellis, President EuropeanPWN-Paris, encouraged members to sustain their efforts. There is still so much to do!  I have been working for 27 years. When I was in my mid-30's, there were just 2 women at the senior management conferences I . Fifteen years later - at the last one I attended in February there were 8 or 10 women out of 60 people. Not great progress! She referred to the EuropeanPWN  WomenOnBoards (WoB)  program and a joint study carried out with IFA and ORCE on this topic published in September 2009. EuropeanPWN also publishes the bi-annual Board Women's Monitor that tracks statistics on women in board positions in a number of European countries. The next edition appears in 2010.  To conclude, Hilary had a thought to share:  I would like to know where all those women who were the first to graduate from HEC in the 1970's are!

Nadalette La Fonta Six, Vice-President, New Members, EuropeanPWN-Paris:  How pleasant it was to see the passion and effectiveness of the many women here tonight.     

Dana Allen, Vice-President Marketing and Communication, EuropeanPWN-Paris: We hear that professional women are considered to be either too ‘warm or fuzzy' to credible on boards, or at the other extreme ‘aggressive.'  I was quite impressed by the way that Viviane expresses herself:  with a fine mixture of femininity, humility, and humor, which lets her competence shine through.  I imagine that the careers of many women would benefit from such communication skills.

Francoise Daut-Vallier guest:  I enjoyed this first meeting with EPWN because I met women who share my views on issues and face similar challenges in their professional fields. Viviane Neiter was very convincing; she doesn't hold anything back and she has certainly had an interesting career.

Viviane Neiter, speaker: Tonight's debate was rich, coming from women of different origins and cultures. This living example shows that diversity contributes to creating values, just as it does on a board.

Emmanuelle Gagliardi:  Moderator. I was delighted to share this instructive and convivial moment with all of you. It is now up to us to change these words into actions all year long, each in her own capacity.

Fianna Jesover, Senior Policy Manager, Corporate Governance, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development: The OECD is exploring ways to put diversity on boards on their corporate governance agenda.  I was interested to learn of the research available on this topic and hear about the actual practical experience of women on boards. I think we should do more 'case studies' showing how women can succeed.

Zarouhi Odabashian, Project Manager, Armenian General Benevolent Union, guest: Imposing quotas for women's representation on boards may turn out to be effective in changing mentalities, resulting, in the long run, in more women in decision-making roles. Changing mentalities is crucial and it can be done in many ways. Ideally it should start at an early age in school where children are conditioned by the binary presentation of traditional "men's jobs" and "women's jobs". Changing these outdated concepts should be reinforced at all levels, from family to institutional.