Three. This is the number of women on the list of the 100 highest paid bosses of companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, according to a study by the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives published last week.1.
Three women against 97 men. We’ll tell each other frankly, it’s hard.
The study notes that there are more “Mark” (and as many “Michael” and “Scott”) as leaders in the list. It might be funny if it wasn’t so daunting.
This list demonstrates that the presidents of large corporations still form a boy club. Those who find that too much is being done to promote diversity would do well to note that there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done in several sectors.
If appointments were made on the basis of ability alone, it is clear that there would be well over 3% women among the highest paid bosses at the TSX. This ridiculously low percentage is proof that there are barriers to women’s advancement. These barriers must be broken down.
Since 2020, Canadian law requires all companies listed on the stock exchange to disclose the proportion of women, Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities and members of visible minorities on their boards of directors and senior management.
It’s an interesting first step. Forcing disclosure is forcing reflection. And it’s exposing yourself to criticism if all your directors and your leaders come from the same mould.
The Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations (IGOPP) notes that mandatory disclosure seems to have had an “immediate effect”, particularly for members of visible minorities.
Between 2020 and 2021, their proportion rose from 4.4% to 6.1% on boards of directors and from 8.7% to 10.6% in senior management, according to a sample of 70 companies studied by IGOPP (compared to 26.5% in the Canadian population).
“This increase seems directly attributable to the new disclosure requirement,” the institute said in a report published last year.
The effect is less dramatic for women. In 2021, women held 31% of board positions and 26% of senior management positions in the sample, slight increases from 2020.
The fact that women represent barely 3% of the highest paid CEOs of the TSX, however, shows that an ultimate glass ceiling exists when it comes to accessing the chair of the big boss.
These inequities must provoke serious reflections both within companies and governments.
In the first case, Isabelle Marquis, co-creator and general manager of L’effet A, a group that promotes female ambition, points out that the recipe is simple. We first need a president (or a president!) who makes this issue a priority. Then quantified objectives, measures to achieve them and consequences if we miss the targets.
There are examples to follow. Mme Marquis points to Mouvement Desjardins, where 59% of managers are women and which has just been ranked 4e magazine’s world’s best employers for women Forbes.
Governments, on the other hand, need to keep an eye on the numbers.
The feminization of corporate management does not happen in two weeks and mandatory disclosure has probably not yet delivered all its benefits.
At a time when talent retention is a major issue, we can also hope that employers will realize that ignoring half the labor pool when it comes time to offer promotions is tantamount to shooting themselves in the foot.
Otherwise, you will have to go to the next step. As early as 2011, for example, France imposed a 40% quota for women on the boards of large companies. Seeing that the desired “trickle down effect” towards the top administration did not occur, she went one step further ten years later with a law that will force large companies to have 30% of their senior executives by 2027 and 40% by 2030.
If the boy club persist, we will have to think about it.