ASX Corporate Governance Council recommends promotion of women



By Rebecca Urban

Companies will be under pressure on the issue of gender diversity under new corporate governance policies.

The Australian Securities Exchange’s Corporate Governance Council last night released an updated version of its guidelines and recommendations, including a call for companies to disclose the proportion of women on boards and in senior management, and to provide progress reports on gender objectives.

Companies will also be encouraged to set up a committee for devising strategies to address gender diversity, consider diversity in succession planning and regularly review the proportion of women to men at all levels of an organisation.

Boards will also be encouraged to disclose the mix of skills they are looking for in their membership and to ensure there is an accurate impression of the relative participation of women in the workplace.

As with other corporate governance principles and recommendations, adopting the changes is not mandatory.

However, companies that do not will be required to explain that decision in their annual reports.

The changes apply for financial years starting on or after January 1 next year.

However, the council has encouraged companies to attempt an early transition to the changes from today, meaning they will be under pressure to increase their accountability in their upcoming end-of-financial year reports.

The guidelines, finalised after public consultation, follow a report by the Corporate and Markets Advisory Committee that found women comprised just 8 per cent of directors among the ASX’s top 200 listed entities — a figure largely unchanged since 2002.

The changes also follow mounting evidence of the benefits of gender diversity in organisations, including analysis from Goldman Sachs JBWere that suggested closing the gap between male and female employment rates would boost Australia’s GDP by 11 per cent.

Article from The Australian, July 1, 2010.