Target achieved

The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) has announced that female board representation on ASX 200 boards has reached the 30% target.

ACSI notes that in some cases, the target has been exceeded with women accounting for 40% of directorships at 40 ASX200 companies and 50% or more at a 20 companies.

ACSI CEO Louise Davidson said that the benefits of board diversity are well established adding that the ‘milestone represents the culmination of years of work by ACSI and others to increase the number of women appointed to listed company boards…To have corporate Australia achieve and, in many cases, now exceed this target is a good outcome.’

The job isn’t complete?

Despite the achievement of the 30% target, ACSI emphasises that it considers that ‘gender representation on company boards is a long way from equal’. For example:

• Overall, 70% of board positions are held by men including 90% of chair roles
• Over 50% of the ASX 200 is yet to reach the 30% target
• Five ASX200 companies have no women directors and 46 companies have only one
• More than 25% of ASX200–300 companies have zero women boards

‘While we are pleased to see the 30% milestone achieved, it’s important that we maintain the momentum for change’ Ms Davidson said.

ACSI will continue to advocate for gender parity on boards

Referencing its recent policy proposal which called for listed companies to set a ‘reasonable’ timeframe for achieving gender balanced boards (ie a 40% men, 40% women and 20% of either gender:40:20) and advocated regulatory intervention should this not occur by 2025, ACSI said that it will continue to advocate for increased board diversity.

‘Until then, we will apply our voting policy to recommend our members vote against the election of directors on boards with poor gender diversity’ ACSI states.

To this end, ACSI recently wrote to the boards of ASX300 companies with poor gender diversity and is currently undertaking a series of meetings with their directors to discuss this issue.