R 36 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®
?
ecent efforts to increase the number of women and minorities on the boards of major American corporations have not yielded signifi cant results. Just 16 percent of Fortune 500 board members are women, and about 13 percent are racial and ethnic minorities, according to numerous stud- ies. And those fi gures, while measly, represent a slight increase since 2004, the Alliance for Board Diversity (ABD) stated in a 2011 report.
IT’S NOT AS IF THE BENEFITS OF BOARD DIVERSITY ARE IN DOUBT.T e ABD concluded that “as businesses, markets, and customers are increasingly con- nected through the global economy, diverse points of view are essential to the growth of profi table corporations.” T ose diverse perspectives, the National Association of
Corporate Directors (NACD) wrote in a 2012 report, often come from sh areholders, employees, suppliers, and regula- tors. T e NACD report states: “Board composition … has not always kept pace. T e benefi ts of board diversity, both tangible and intangible, range from greater understanding of customers and employees to the value of having multiple perspectives around the table.” As a business brief in the U.S. Supreme Court has said,
diversity creates a more competitive workforce that can “facilitate unique and creative approaches to problem- solving.” Christine Edwards, then general counsel of Bank One Corporation, has been quoted as saying that “diversity is good business.” Like the advocates who have championed corporate
board diversity, advocates within the legal industry have tried to boost the number of in-house corporate general counsel who are minorities and women. Interestingly, they have had more success with women
chief legal offi cers than with racial minorities; latest fi gures from the Minority Corporate Counsel Association show that more than 20 percent of Fortune 500 companies—108 to be exact—now have a woman general counsel. Only 9.4 percent of top companies’ general counsel are members of racial minorities, according to the MCCA study. Only 15.3 percent of partners in major law fi rms are
women, so women are doing relatively well, by nearly any standard, at securing the top in-house legal job in major corporations in this decade. T is leads to a question that has not been studied at
length, if at all: Is there a possible path to increasing board diversity that takes advantage of, and leverages, the existing diversity advances that have been made in the chief legal offi cer’s chair? Are companies with women general counsel more likely to appoint women to board positions? Or, are
JULY/AUGUST 2013
companies that have more women on their boards more likely to elevate women to the post of corporate general counsel? Either way, there may be a little-noticed opportu- nity to boost corporate diversity. T e path probably runs both ways. Companies that
start with a larger-than-average number of women on their boards are often the ones that are most able to add women to their high executive ranks, including general counsel. And in some companies, a general counsel who is a strong advocate of diversity can be an ambassador of diversity throughout the corporation, including its board. “Our position is usually that we need to get boards to
become diverse fi rst, as we believe that this will become a pervasive value throughout the organization,” says Peter Gleason, head of publications and research at the NACD. “We start with the board as a catalyst of change. T e board can drive this tone throughout the organization. However, it can go both ways. Sometimes the company creates a strategy of inclusion that they push through the whole organization, including the board.” A research report “Advancing Women Leaders: T e
Connection Between Women Board Directors and Women Corporate Offi cers,” issued in 2008 by the nonprofi t study group Catalyst, found that the percentage of women on a company’s board is directly correlated with the future percent- age of women in its senior management ranks. T is connec- tion, Catalyst said, could in fact lead to a way of increasing the number of women in corporate leadership, including the general counsel or chief legal offi cer. Catalyst concluded that having more women in corporate
leadership sends a critical message to women entering the workforce that their contributions are valued. T e presence of women on boards, Catalyst noted, would have a strong impact on the number of women in key positions in the corporation. Similarly, an April 2013 article in the McKinsey Quarterly,
the fl agship online publication of the prestigious consulting fi rm McKinsey & Company, concludes that, among other things, diversity in a company’s board can lead to diversity in the executive suite. T at would include major corporations’ top legal offi cers—and can become a way to accelerate the progress
MCCA.COM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52