John Colvin, CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors is really leading the ranks of good guys and showing his commitment to gender diversity on boards with the announcement of a new Board Diversity Scholarship Program by the AICD.  Under the program, the AICD together with the Australian Government Office for Women will award 70 full fee scholarships (not including accommodation and travel costs) to board-ready women to undertake the Australian Institute of Company Directors' highly regarded Company Directors Course or Mastering the Boardroom Program.  Read More

This is the topic of a presentation I'll be delivering this Friday evening at TedXWoolloomooloo in Sydney.  I'll be taking to the stage alongside a number of thoughtleaders including an Indigenous Elder, a Fellow of Lowy Institute, a future thinker and a heatlth economist... each of us arguing the case for the topic we are passionate about.   Read More

The predictable topic for discussion at last week’s Women’s Forum Global Meeting in Deauville, France was quotas.  Dubbed the Davos of women, the annual gathering attracted a raft of female business and political leaders, and 23 chieftains of industry — 13 of them men — committed to six concrete measures to improve the gender balance in their companies over the next 12 months. The measures included pledges to make the advancement of women a top strategic priority at the chief executive level, to require female candidates in every recruitment pool, and to deliver specific targets for more female representation at all levels of their companies. Read More

Those of you interested in statistics and data will love this new UN report released this week in New York on the state of play for women around the globe.  It’s not a quick read - at 284 pages!!!! - but includes a comprehensive review of that women and employment, health, education and all things in between, along with a fantastic array of graphs and tables that illustrate perfectly why we must remain focused on gender equality, all over the word.  A snapshot of some of the report highlights include data showing: Read More

I was thrilled to receive an email from Cindy Flower this week at the Department for Water in Adelaide with the fantastic news that the program she's been running to improve the advancement of women in leadership across the department had just been announced the winner of the Women's awards category in the Diversity@Work Awards.  sphinxx has been part of the program at the Department of Water in SA for almost 2 years now, providing mentoring programs, a training workshop on negotiation, and access to theAscend development days, so we're really excited to see the progress Cindy continues to make.   Read More

I received a note from Sarah at the EEO Trust in New Zealand asking if we could supply a quick summary of the key points in the new ASX corporate governance guidelines relating to gender diversity reporting.  Here's the summary we've prepared which may also be of assistance to you in planning how your organisation will respond to the unprecedented demand for skilled and experienced businesswomen. A few important points to note about this new compliance requirement: Read More

At an Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce gathering in Sydney this week Westpac Chief Gail Kelly announced a new target to lift female representation in the Bank's top 10% leadership ranks from the 33% of present to 40% by 2014.  Speaking at the same event, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and prominant board director Catherine Livingstone also shared their views on gender equality in leadership, echoing my opinion that it's an issue that requires dedicated, consistent and ongoing focus to achieve significant change - as you would expect from any major change program.  Read More

I've long held the belief that women alone can't solve the gender equality puzzle... but getting men to drive the change is sometimes easier said than done.  This article from The Glass Hammer points out that while gender equality is a hot topic, the message hasn't yet filtered down to the "Average Joe".  Author Elizabeth Harrin offers 5 tips to engage men in the change process: Read More

I’ve been pondering this week just how important gender equality in leadership is to the business community in Australia?  With the release of the 2010 Census of Women in Leadership (showing we’ve made almost no progress since reporting began in 2002), and ongoing attention around the ASX gender reporting guidelines, the consistent message from corporate affairs departments around the country is that our business leaders are more focused than ever on fixing the gender gap at the top.  But what sort of priority is attached to the issue?

Two events this week have convinced me that we still have a long way to go. Read More

The Reibey Institute, a newly founded Australian research centre focused on women’s leadership issues, released it’s first research note today noting amongst many preliminary findings that over the past 3 and 5 year periods, ASX500 companies with women directors on their boards delivered significantly higher Return on Equity (ROE) than those companies without women directors. Read More