Case study: All-male boards should be a rare exception today

Auckland Airport Chairman Patrick Strange

COMMENT by Patrick Strange:

We all know the benefits of board diversity. Boards are there to provide governance and to add value – and diversity helps that.

Should we expect listed boards to average around 50 per cent gender balance? Long-term, yes. But probably not currently. Unfortunately, in most sectors of New Zealand business, women have been grossly under-represented in management and chief executive roles. So the pool of experienced women executives for boards is still relatively small. This is especially true in some areas like investment banking and engineering.

But there is still a very rich pool of very competent female directors, not least from legal and advisory backgrounds.

So what of the listed companies that still have all-male boards? I am sure there are a few exceptions, but most need to have a good hard look at themselves. They are lacking diversity – and what signal are they sending their customer bases and their own staff (a large proportion of whom will be women)?

At Auckland Airport, we currently have five women in a board of eight. We didn't aim for that, but we do make sure we always have both female and male candidates for vacant directorships. For our most recent appointment, we needed to replace the retiring Brett Godfrey's aviation and customer experience – and the best available candidate just happened to be Liz Savage, another Australian.

Of course, diversity is wider than just gender – it is also about age and ethnicity, for example. For a board of older white men to think they understand digital transformation and a multi-cultural New Zealand customer base is a dangerous strategy!

It might take us a little time to get to a true balance in New Zealand, but all-male boards should be a rare exception today.

Patrick Strange is chairman of Auckland International Airport