New Year’s resolution: diversify? No, it is a mandate. California SB826 demands your attention now to attract a diverse Board of Directors in 2019. New Year’s resolution: get help? Yes, Arnold Partners has the experience and the relationships to help you achieve a successful transition to a more effective, inclusive, and compliant Board.
The new law of the land
The California legislature passed SB826 in Oct 2017 with the requirement that public companies include at least one female director by the end of 2019. If your Board has more than five members, two will need to be female. One report indicates that 377 companies need to add at least one female director in 2019. Follow this Link to Read the bill.
Is the law merited?
Some say it is a shame to have to legislate this (agree), others say hooray it is long overdue (agree), and there are those who say it will put female members into a compromised role on the board because they are there only because of the mandate (disagree). To this last point I argue that there are many, many more highly qualified female candidates than needed to fill those 377+ openings. And given the high-quality nature of these professionals there is no way they will not make immediate and positive contributions to the companies they will serve.
However, finding the right female candidates for your Board is the key: a professional who can contribute from day one to numerous key strategic and operational issues.
Finding qualified candidates
Okay, so qualified candidates are out there, but how do you find them? This is where Arnold Partners is uniquely qualified to help your Board identify, assess, and ultimately attract excellent candidates for you. The proof? Just in the last year alone, half of the CFOs we placed are female, and in every search we delivered a high quality and gender-diverse slate of candidates.
The easiest way to gain gender diversity on your Board is to look to the financial community—CFOs, CAOs and the like—to find top tier talent who will make important contributions right out of the gate for your company. While female CFOs are still in a large minority in total, there are many current public sector and retired female CFOs to consider. Arnold Partners has a unique relationship with this community. These financial experts can adeptly serve on the Audit Committee, the Governance Committee, or the Compensation Committee while concurrently make contributions to the larger issues facing any company.
Do quotas work?
Forbes magazine contributor Kim Elsesser wrote about California SB826 in her October 2, 2018 article, “California Mandates Women on Boards, but Do Quotas Work?”:
“The quota law is not going to solve all gender issues in organizations in California, but it doesn’t have to. The quotas will certainly increase the number of female directors, and that’s good enough for me. It may not bring greater corporate profits or shrink the gender pay gap, but that’s okay. It makes a clear statement that organizations that don’t take gender equity seriously are not welcome in California, and that alone makes it valuable.”
I agree with Kim. I would add that the quality of new Directors you want to attract to your Board is of the greatest importance. Partnering with a firm that can help you get the right candidates to the table with a sense of urgency and accuracy is also key. To talk about how Arnold Partners can help, contact me at moc.srentrapdlonra@evad or call 408-205-7373.
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