Although I don’t write about it much here (this is a Tech Journal after all), one of my interests is corporate governance, and I am active in the New England Chapter of the National Association of Corporate Directors, or NACD for short. Yesterday morning we kicked off our annual season of breakfast seminars with a session on prospective director due diligence — i.e. what you should look into if you are invited onto a board.
The topic wasn’t unique — what was unique was the two main speakers were Gail Deegan and Nancy Hawthorne, both women, both CFOs of major corporations, and both had served on at least 5 public company boards and currently sit on EMC, Avid, and TJX. They were well prepared, and gave excellent talks that commanded the full attention of the audience. This was easily the best session that I have ever attended at the NACD.
What was even better, was that the first question from the audience was from Amy Salzhauer of Ignitition Ventures, who was looking for input on whether or not she should join a board if she felt she was being asked onto the board solely as a token woman. A great discussion ensued, in which a number of prominent women and men spoke in favor of increased board diversity, including Pat Flynn of the Boston Club, and Rose Ann Giordano formerly of DEC. Pat said that although great progress had been made, only 45 out of New England’s largest 100 companies have a woman on the board, and only 13 have two or more.
I can’t help but think that if we had true equality of representation on the boards of our largest corporations that the worst excesses of capitalism would be restrained, and that we would live in a more compassionate and humane society. If you doubt what I say, take a look through Ignition’s website, and think about what role someone who created it would likely play on a Fortune 500 board. Hint, the landing page has the following quote from Socrates:
Even if we know how to find gold, we would still need to know how to use the gold. Any knowledge, whether of money-making or medicine or any other art which can make something, is not sufficient unless we can use the thing made as well