At Last, Women Take Up 10% Of Global Board Seats. Should We Celebrate?

There’s some good news on International Women’s Day: a worldwide study shows that for the first time, women make up more than 10 percent of board director seats. Hooray!

The new report, from GMI Ratings, looked at over 4,300 companies in 45 countries, finding that women now make up 10.5 percent of board seats. That’s up a little — from 9.8 percent the year before. But hey, it’s finally more than 10 percent! And, for the first time, the percentage of companies with at least one female director has dropped below 40 this year.

Go the glass half full route if you must, but let’s be honest: the numbers still totally stink. Progress is a good thing, but the situation is far from good. We’re glad that the report shows some promise, but we’re a little disturbed by the attempt to celebrate the fact that half the population makes up a tenth of board seats.

What to do? Well, to get started, here’s a list of 3,500 women you can recruit to your board. Someone sent this memo to Italy and Japan, where women take up only a respective 4.5 percent and 1.1 percent of board seats.

TAGS: women on boards | women percentage on boards

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