Female CFOs a rare breed

BY NICK SMITH

OPINION: Here's a question: is there even one woman who serves as chief financial officer on a major New Zealand company?

I asked business leaders, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Institute of Directors, the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the New Zealand Stock Exchange. They couldn't name one.

There are some notable exceptions at government and council entities and private companies: Rosemary Ferguson at Mighty River Power, Sally Slawson at Kensington Swan, Carol Bellette at Landcare Research and Stana Pezic at Metrowater.

But female CFOs at a large listed company? Sighted as often as a Fiordland moa.

Auckland Airport chief executive Simon Moutter last year wanted to hire a woman as his CFO because he believes gender diversity delivers a better business result, an opinion backed by international research.

Despite the best efforts of recruitment agencies and advertising, however, only men applied for the job, won by Simon Robertson. Nice fellow and top CFO by all accounts, but he's another man.

It's more than 10 years since The Dominion Post led its front page with the eye-catching headline "Dumped because I don't have a penis" above an article about workplace discrimination.

It's rare to hear of such misogyny these days but despite all the progress, women struggle to achieve employment parity, as measured by overall income, wages for comparable jobs and a share of senior executive and board appointments.

Even the Prime Minister has weighed into the debate about the need to get more women on boards.

He, too, believes economic performance can be improved by paying attention to the issue of gender diversity.

State sector employers are heeding his wishes; 47 per cent of new appointments in the December quarter were women.

Women's Affairs nominations director Pamela Cohen reports that female participation on boards of listed companies was 8.6 per cent in 2008, a figure that "probably hasn't changed and, if anything, it may even have gone down a bit".

Across the 412 state sector boards, the average participation rate is 42 per cent. However, this figure is skewed, Cohen warns, by female over-participation on health and social sector boards.

"The boards that we feel are the really important ones  Crown companies, research institutes, financial institutions  women are under-represented on those," she says. "And they are responsible for decisions about major New Zealand assets or important institutions; it's not the physiotherapist's representation board."

Fewer than a third of directors on these boards are women and the ministry is trying to improve representation, particularly at state-owned enterprises.

Part of the problem is the lack of serious financial experience among female candidates. In other words, a supply issue.

As Moutter notes, many women on private sector boards bring strong HR or marketing skills to the team, which is fine for a company with a need for a governance focus in this area, but not particularly useful to all corporate entities.

Both Moutter and Cohen say the paucity of female chief financial officers presents a major impediment to improving female participation on large commercial boards, as these are the skills that are highly valued.

So, what is going on in the accountancy sector? According to the Institute of Chartered Accountants, only 50 out of 370 chief financial officers who responded to an online survey were women.

Anecdotal reports, Women's Affairs policy analyst Clare Needham adds, suggest a profession facing a demographic crisis.

Too many older men at the top, while the bottom and middle levels are filled with younger women, who don't stay with the job.

This is due to the usual suspects: issues surrounding childcare, family, time and male-dominated culture.

Childcare is an enormous challenge when a job places huge demands on employees. Institute of Directors policy and research manager William Whittaker says companies need to get much smarter over time management, such as working from home arrangements, if they want to retain talented women.

While Cohen concedes there is a supply issue, she says demand is also a problem. There aren't enough bosses like Moutter actively looking for top female staff.

Perhaps, she suggests, the NZ Stock Exchange could adopt an initiative launched by the Australian Stock Exchange's corporate governance council in December.

The ASX is demanding companies set voluntary diversity targets. There is no enforcement, but companies are required to explain their non-compliance under the exchange's "if not, why not" requirement.

NZX spokeswoman Rowan Macrae says there are no plans to follow Australia's lead, although she does note that women at the exchange fill the top spots for merger and acquisition, corporate counsel, traded products, strategy, data and corporate office. Two senior members of the finance team are women, she adds.

Plainly, the NZX is a paragon of equal opportunity. But a voluntary scheme such as the ASX's would bring fresh light to this important issue. It is not a silver bullet by any stretch but might provide much-needed oxygen to the debate to create the impetus to implement real change.

- © Fairfax NZ News