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2007 Catalyst Census of Women Board Directors of the FP500: Voices From the Boardroom

Research Reports

Author: Laura Jenner, Monica Dyer, Lily Whitham

Published: June 2008

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Catalyst has tracked the representation of women in corporate governance in Canada since 1998. The census lists women board directors and total directors by company revenue, industry, province/territory, Canadian-owned versus foreign-owned companies. This year’s census includes data from interviews with more than 50 women board directors

Impetus: In 1998, Catalyst began to produce an annual census to clarify the status of women on boards of the largest companies in Canada. This report marks the fifth census of women board directors in Canada and provides a snapshot of both corporate accomplishment and of work yet to be done.

Methodology/Quantitative:

  • Catalyst analyzed the board directors of each company in the Financial Post 500, which included publicly traded companies, privately held companies, crown corporations, and co-operatives.
  • In June 2007, Catalyst sent letters to our contact for each company to verify the total number of board directors as well as the name, gender, and profession of each director. Our verification rate in 2007 was 95.6 percent.
  • For those companies that did not take the opportunity to verify the data, Catalyst has reported the unverified data we obtained from public records.
  • Research teams audited all data multiple times, comparing printouts form the database with the verification from companies and public records to ensure accuracy.
  • The report represents the gender diversity of corporate governance at FP500 companies as of June 5, 2007.

Methodology/Qualitative:

  • Semi-structured interviews with 56 women who were currently sitting on FP500 boards were conducted by the Canadian research team. A standard protocol was followed for each interview, and interviewees rarely strayed from the structured questions.
  • To analyze the qualitative research, the team developed a relevant list of themes based on the questions asked in the protocol. The codebook for the analysis of the interviews was developed from this list of themes.
  • All of the coding and analysis of the interview transcripts was conducted in NVIVO 7, a qualitative software analysis program that provides tools for organizing and sorting the qualitative data.
  • The research team reviewed and analyzed themes to look for patterns in the frequency of discussions by specific topics and by company types. Major trends and themes were then drawn out into an emergent storyline.

Findings: The report found that women’s representation on corporate boards in Canada remains remarkably low. Women held 13.0 percent of board seats in the FP500, up only one percentage point since 2005. In 2007, just over 40 percent of FP500 companies in Canada still had no women board directors; less than one-third of companies had multiple women on their boards. FP500 companies continued to draw board members form narrow pools—overall, one in five board seats filled since 2005 were given to individuals (women and men) who were currently sitting on at least one other FP500 board.

Census interviewees suggested several reasons why the overall representation of women on corporate boards remains frustratingly low. They said the positions, opportunities, and networks that had been so vital to their own success are still not available or accessible to most women in corporate Canada. Interviewees stressed that reliance on informal “old boys’ networks” continues to be a significant factor in how new board directors are recruited.

Our analysis, however, did reveal small signs of progress. In 2007, the proportion of boards with multiple women increased by 2.5 percentage points since 2005—rising to 28.6 percent in 2007. Women’s representation as board chairs increased by two percentage points, from 1.3 percent in 2005 to 3.4 percent in 2007. The percentage of women chairing Audit, Human Resources/Compensation, and Nominating/Corporate Governance committees on publicly traded FP500 companies rose to 6.8 percent, a one-percent increase from 2005. While any progress made by women on the boards of FP500 companies is good, clearly more work needs to be done.

Lead Sponsor: CIBC
Supporting Sponsors: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Canada; McKinsey & Company Canada 

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