Women on Corporate Boards: The Role of Business Schools for Fundamental Change

More and more corporations seek to find qualified women to exercise corporate governance on their boards. Along with professional organizations and companies, business schools are now realizing that the top is but the tip of the iceberg. Consequently, the programs, curricula, and activities now being put in place aim to prepare and grow the pipeline of women managers and executives. The questions about filling the pipeline, and offering curricula and programs to prepare women to exercise corporate and corporate governance responsibility at all levels, has taken on new urgency and relevance.

A 2012 report by the Credit Suisse Research Institute, Gender Diversity and Corporate Performance, showed that businesses are more successful with women in the boardroom. Following a 2012 study of 2,400 companies globally, the Institute found that net income growth over the past six years averaged 14 percent in companies with women directors, eclipsing their counterparts without female board members, which posted only 10 percent growth. Catalyst, a research group focused on women’s advancement to senior leadership, found that Fortune 500 companies with more women directors outperformed those with fewer women board members on a broad range of financial indicators.

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