“Maximising people potential & performance”
The networks of highly connected
women directors
through the glass ceiling
Dr Rosanne Hawarden
www. betterboards.biz
“Maximising people potential & performance”
In 1999, the first
Fortune 500 company woman
CEO ,
Carleton Fiorina of Hewlett
Packard said
“ Women face no limits
whatsoever. There is not a
glass ceiling”
Outlier - a director with 2+ seats
(Malcolm Gladwell)
“Maximising people potential & performance”
Trophy directors
4-7 seats
Super trophy
directors
8+ seats
The best way for a woman to become a
director of a
Fortune 500 company?
Golden token director
A tenured Harvard University professor
in law, economics, business or
medicine.
Branson (2010) Last Male Bastion
“Maximising people potential & performance”
Board appointments Black Swan events?
•Rare
•High impact
•Unpredictable
•Only explained in retrospect
Nicolas Taleb’s term
As rare as a white kiwi?
“Maximising people potential & performance”
A New View on Diversity?
Successful business networks are stable and
predictable with sufficient diversity to ensure
their survival in times of political and
economic change.
Hiring aliens from outer space?
“Maximising people potential & performance”
A New View on Diversity?
Pareto’s rule of 80/20 or the power law
“Critical few and the trivial many”
20% connector
directors
80% single seat
directors
“Maximising people potential & performance”
Its not a Glass Ceiling
Its a Glass Network
Glass Ceiling = First board
appointment to a
substantial listed company
“Maximising people potential & performance”
The Glass Network
The complex and powerful network
organising the world of non-executive directorships
opening (or closing) opportunities for aspiring directors.
The ‘Glass Network’ is invisible to participants and
only revealed through analysis tools.
Dr Rosanne Hawarden
DBA, FCIS
“Maximising people potential & performance”
Social network analysis
Look at how many
components and only
analyse the largest
component
Red dots
are connector directors
with six seats or links to
other directors
“Maximising people potential & performance”
GLASS CEILING
BASICS
No of seats
US Fortune
or
1000 directors
directorships
Male Female
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Totals
4685 425
938 100
327
47
103
17
38
7
11
1
3
1
1
1
6107 598
Use
quotas
to
increase
this
level?
The Glass Network
• The ‘Glass Network’ uses the links
created between directors sitting at a
common boardroom table
• Female directors are not marginalised in
the smaller components, tending to be
found in the largest connected
component, often 80% of the network
“Maximising people potential & performance”
• Director networks look the same at the
global, national or regional level
• Recruiting directors by ‘shoulder tapping’
gives rise to the familiar ‘old boy’
network
• The networks of male and female
directors are the same, differing only in
size
• A power law called the ‘law of the critical
few and trivial many’ shapes the
network.
• Most directors have only one directorship
or seat, approximately 20% have two plus
seats and are the ‘connector directors’
• City size, company size and tax
payments also follow a power law.
Pareto’s 80/20 rule. Big successful
companies in large cities have bigger
boards that appoint more women
• Directors as outliers - misconceptions
about success
• Women are found in all director networks,
a few always have multiple seats.
Quotas?
“Maximising people potential & performance”
To force rapid social change
quotas (racial or gender based)
are an effective tool.
Equity is hard won and not easily sustained.
“Maximising people potential & performance”
Conclusions for Aspiring Directors
• Competition is covert and fierce for scare appointments
• Start early getting governance skills and board experience – the
best connected directors can have 40-120 board appointments in a
business career
• Use personal enablers that will raise your profile – ie family
connections, celebrity status
• Very high director turnover means that even the most successful
directors don’t stay long
• Realistic expectations - you will most likely only ever have one
substantial board appointment