board directors Archives - Women's Agenda https://womensagenda.com.au/tag/board-directors/ News for professional women and female entrepreneurs Wed, 17 Jan 2024 01:55:17 +0000 en-AU hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.2 Gail Kelly nominated for position on UBS Group AG board of directors https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/appointments/gail-kelly-nominated-for-position-on-ubs-group-ag-board-of-directors/ https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/appointments/gail-kelly-nominated-for-position-on-ubs-group-ag-board-of-directors/#respond Wed, 17 Jan 2024 01:04:08 +0000 https://womensagenda.com.au/?p=74197 Gail Kelly, a trailblazer for women in Australia’s banking industry, has been nominated for election on the Board of Directors and UBS Group AG.

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Gail Kelly, a trailblazer for women in Australia’s banking industry, has been nominated for election on the board of directors at UBS Group AG.

Colm Kelleher, the chairperson of the board of directors at the global corporation, said Kelly’s nomination promises great things for UBS Group.

“As one of the most influential voices in the Asia-Pacific financial industry and an acknowledged leader, Gail has an outstanding reputation,” Kelleher said.

“I greatly look forward to working with her on the Board.”

Kelly was the managing director at St George Bank from 2002, before being appointed as CEO of Westpac Banking Corporation in 2008. She was the first woman to be appointed as the chief executive of any major bank in Australia.

During her tenure as CEO of Westpac, she successfully oversaw the merger with St George Bank, deemed the largest market financial services merger in Australia. Kelly also navigated the company through the Global Financial Crisis and emerged on the other side stronger than ever.

Kelly was CEO of Westpac from 2008-2015. Since leaving the bank, she has  served as a senior global advisor to the UBS CEO and its group executive board from 2016-2023.

Kelly’s nomination to be elected on the board at UBS Group AG comes as Dieter Wemmer, the longest serving Board member of UBS Group US, informed the company he would not be standing for re-election to the Board of Directors.

UBS Chairperson Colm Kelleher thanked Wemmer for his eight years of service on the Board, a role he commenced in 2016.

“Dieter’s formidable expertise and personality will be missed on the Group Board,” Kelleher said.

Currently, there are four women who sit on the 13-person Board of Directors at UBS Group AG.

The Board election, for which Kelly has been nominated, will take place at the Annual General Meeting on 24 April 2024.

Kelly currently sits on several Boards, including Singtel, Woolworths Holdings Limited in South Africa and the Australian Philanthropic Services.

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How can businesses up their digital strategy game? Joanne Moss shares her tips https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/how-can-businesses-up-their-digital-strategy-game-joanne-moss-shares-her-tips/ https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/how-can-businesses-up-their-digital-strategy-game-joanne-moss-shares-her-tips/#respond Mon, 15 Jan 2024 02:00:09 +0000 https://womensagenda.com.au/?p=74118 Joanne Moss is one of Australia’s foremost business and legal leaders in digital innovation and transformation. 

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How do companies manage digital transformation in an era when technology is rapidly transforming how we work, with systems and processes evolving year after year? Often, it comes down to ensuring organisations get the right advice from their boards and executive leaders.

Joanne Moss, an experienced board director of ASX-listed tech companies and partner at national law firm Gadens, is one of Australia’s foremost business and legal leaders in digital innovation and transformation. 

She’s at the cutting edge of board strategy and complex disputes, and is a thought leader around digital transformation and innovation. She’s spent years advising companies on how to navigate their digital strategy, utilising both her legal and commercial business knowledge. 

Speaking to Women’s Agenda recently, Moss explained that throughout the time she’s spent as a board director, a deep understanding of the commercial drivers and pressure points of fast-track disruptive tech companies has meant she is able to offer holistic guidance to businesses. 

“Many early-stage companies look to roll out a digital process to one team first such as the IT or finance department,” Moss said. “It’s a siloed approach. They try to bolt it onto other teams at a later stage.”

“What is lacking is the overarching consideration. A holistic approach makes governance and operational execution of the digital strategy simpler and more streamlined. 

“While different teams may be more advanced in the adoption of certain technology and digital processes, the company as a whole should have a true north on the digital strategy.”

Digital strategy from the boardroom

When it comes to her corporate leadership, Moss has frequently found herself forging a path in a traditionally male-dominated space. She gained her first commercial, paid non-executive director role at the age of 39 at a public, unlisted biotech company. At the time, she was the youngest non-executive director on the board by about 20 years, and was the only woman in the room. 

Until recently, she served as an independent chairperson of an ASX-listed company board, where she facilitated resolutions around how the company could develop and commercialise ground-breaking platforms for workflow automation using artificially intelligent imaging in the life sciences industry, as well as the commercialisation of the FDA approved product in Europe and the US.

According to Moss, the constantly evolving technology of artificial intelligence, workflow automation, cloud computing, data use and cybersecurity are some of the main areas that companies are currently navigating. It’s imperative companies are putting in place the appropriate legal guardrails for emerging tech use.

Moss says her experience across legal, risk, compliance and governance areas also means she is able to advise companies on how to navigate the commercial side of digital strategy. Her advice extends to the roll out of digital products and services, especially at emerging disruptive tech companies. 

She’s currently doing so in her role as a non-executive director of the ASX-listed broadcasting company BirdDog Technology, where she also chairs the company’s Audit and Risk Committee, and is a member of the Remuneration and Nominations Committee. 

Recently, Moss contributed as an expert panellist on the Governance Institute of Australia’s Data Governance Report, which found that almost 60 per cent of participants thought their boards did not have enough understanding of the organisation’s current data governance challenges. Further, more than half of organisations said they did not have a data governance framework, commonly due to capacity and resourcing constraints. 

The report was launched at the ASIC Annual Forum in Melbourne, and as Moss explains, it offers timely and important guidance for companies amid rising cyber incidents and data breaches, increasing regulations on data and personal information, and the imminent reforms to the Privacy Act. 

A lawyer’s perspective

Alongside her work as a board director, Moss is a partner at national law firm Gadens.

She is a litigation partner with an interest in helping commercial clients that are involved in regulatory investigations or litigation regarding mishandling of data and personal information, cyber incidents and data breaches. 

Often, Moss spends her time advising Australian companies on the trend towards emerging tech litigation in the United States, particularly in the area of AI, and the potential for that to unfold in Australia. 

“AI is top of mind for clients and we are having different conversations with different clients depending on where they are at in their innovation and digital disruption journey,” Moss shared with Women’s Agenda.

“Some clients are coming from a low base where they are enquiring about what AI is and how it can assist their organisation. Other clients are more advanced and actively seeking a proof of concept or undertaking pilots – whether open source such as ChatGPT or closed source. 

“The Gadens Intellectual Property and Technology team are providing a lot of advice around clients putting appropriate guard rails in place from a governance perspective on how to use AI within their organisation.”

Moss is also focused on supporting the potential of Australia’s future lawyers in her capacity as a board member of the University of Technology Law Advisory Board and as a member of the university’s Educating for the Future Committee.

“It is pleasing to see the UTS Law Faculty take a holistic and methodical approach to digital disruption by way of a digital strategy which will be weaved throughout the curriculum for its students,” Moss says. 

“This will guide the students in their understanding of how technology will change how they practice law in the future, embrace the challenges posed by technology and encourage its ethical use.”

You can access the Data Governance Report from the Governance Institute of Australia here, and find the link to the Governance and Risk Management Forum 2024 here.

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New data overwhelmingly links gender diversity to business success https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/new-data-overwhelmingly-links-gender-diversity-to-business-success/ https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/new-data-overwhelmingly-links-gender-diversity-to-business-success/#respond Sun, 06 Feb 2022 22:34:30 +0000 https://womensagenda.com.au/?p=58999 The stats are in. Again. Gender diversity at the decision-making table makes a difference in business. And could prevent business failure

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Once again, the numbers tell the story of the importance of gender diversity at the decision-making level. New figures today show that companies with directors of just one gender had a 37 per cent higher failure rate during 2021, than those with a mix.

The findings this time are from Purpose Bureau, an ESG Directory, examining the failure rate across Australian businesses from January to December 2021.

Business failure, according to Purpose Bureau, is defined as applying to businesses that were actively operating in the 12 months prior to their date of deregistration.

Those that lack representation from both men and women were significantly less like to fail than those with all female or all male directorships.

While leadership diversity figures usually tell the story across larger entities, this research is particularly interesting given its scale and how it can be applied to small businesses also. Purpose Bureau says the rate has been measured across almost one million businesses.

They found that for every 10,000 businesses, 318 with a single-gender directorship profile fail, compared with 233 for those with mixed directorship gender profiles.

Some sectors were more likely to succumb to the male-only directorships than others. Including in mining, where a massive 81 per cent of businesses were all-male led, and in construction, with 80 per cent all-male led. All female only directorships were mostly found in education and training, as well as health care and social services, with 15% of directorships across these industries being all female.

Purpose Bureau CEO Nick Kamper described these preliminary findings as representing a “very large cohort of Australian businesses” that “clearly suggests that gender diversity in leadership leads to better business outcomes”.  

“The research requires further analysis to fully understand the dynamics at play, but it’s further evidence that Australian businesses benefit greatly from a diversity of views and experience at the leadership level.”

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‘Put your hand up’: Gail Pemberton on ignoring the high school careers advice and stereotypes https://womensagenda.com.au/business/i-didnt-really-have-any-industry-peers-gail-pemberton-on-pursuing-a-career-in-technology-financial-services/ https://womensagenda.com.au/business/i-didnt-really-have-any-industry-peers-gail-pemberton-on-pursuing-a-career-in-technology-financial-services/#respond Fri, 16 Apr 2021 01:49:40 +0000 https://womensagenda.com.au/?p=53835 Non-executive board director Gail Pemberton is the latest guest on The Leadership Lessons, a podast supported by Salesforce.

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When Gail Pemberton was in high school, the careers advice she received was subpar at best. It was highly gendered, and at the time, the advice being dished out was very stereotyped for girls.

“Basically, in my era, you became a public servant, you became a secretary, you became a teacher, or you became a nurse,” Pemberton tells Kate Mills in the latest episode of The Leadership Lessons.

“Or possibly an accountant, but that was kind of edgy!”

Unsatisfied with the restraints being place upon her, at that young age, Pemberton took it upon herself to figure out what she wanted to do. Through research, she discovered information technology and was excited by the idea that it was a sector offering equal pay for women.

“I also just thought it was very futuristic and something I’d like to be a part of.”

Pemberton enrolled in an accounting course at university, and explains she chose it specifically because it offered technology subjects. She ended up sitting for a computer programming aptitude test, and to the surprise of those administering it, she totally blitzed it.

“I blitzed it so much that they made me sit again because I think they’d thought I’d cheated,” she explains in the podcast. From there, she accepted a job as a trainee computer programmer, and hasn’t looked back.

Pemberton has had a long career in technology and the financial services sector, holding a variety of management and C-suite leadership roles. She’s had a 20-year career at Macquarie Bank, where she held the roles of Chief Information Officer and Chief Operating Officer, as well as time as Managing Director and CEO at BNP Paribas Securities Services.

She’s since transitioned into a non-executive director career, amassing extensive experience on boards at both ASX listed and global companies, including Prospa, PayPal Australia, Eclipx, Melbourne IT Group, and most recently MNF Group.

At MNF Group, one of the Asia-Pacific’s fastest growing technology companies, Pemberton is the first woman to serve as a non-executive director.

“I’m the first female non-executive director and I know that the organisation is quite proud of having taken that first step. It’s an initial step but from that first step, many other steps will follow,” she said.

Despite years spent in male-dominated work environments, Pemberton says she’s always had an innate confidence in her own abilities, and never doubted she deserved a seat at the table.

“I certainly remember events where females weren’t invited, like drinks in the boardroom. All the males were invited, and the women were not,” she says.

“I came from a family where there was a long line of women who had their own businesses or careers, so I always believed I had the right to have a seat at the table. I was able to brush these things aside, but not everybody is like that.”

Advice she often gives to women starting off in their careers, is to do exactly what she did in her earlier years. Embrace opportunities when they come along, even if you don’t feel like you’re totally qualified.

“Do what guys do and think about where you want your career to go and then put your hand up. It’s a motto that I’ve had throughout my career,” Pemberton says.

“I was in a job as a computer programmer before any of my contemporaries were and I was mainly an arts graduate, not a maths and science graduate.”

As for what women can bring to senior leadership roles, especially in board rooms, Pemberton said it’s all about offering new conversations and a diversity of lived experience.

“My experience is that having diversity in the board room leads to better and more effective conversations,” she said.

She points to topics like technology and driving digitisation, how a company treats and relates to its customers, in what regard customers actually hold the company, and a greater awareness of staff engagment.

In 2018, Pemberton was awarded the Order of Australia, in recognition of her distinguished service to the technology and financial services industries, and as someone who had blazed a trail, and mentored women throughout her career.

“It was wonderful to be recognised for my very early roles in information technology, where really…I didn’t know any other females who were in senior leadership roles. I didn’t really have any industry peers,” she said.

“To be recognised for that and to be recognised for speaking up for technology and the importance of technology in organisations, that to me was important. And it was encouraging for other women.”

The Leadership Lessons podcast series, hosted by Kate Mills, is a set of interviews with brilliant female leaders across industries, sharing their perspective on the critical decade ahead.

The Leadership Lessons is supported by Salesforce.

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Last all-male board ends on the S&P 500. But there are still 4 on the ASX 200 https://womensagenda.com.au/uncategorised/last-all-male-board-ends-on-the-sp-500-but-there-are-still-4-on-the-asx-200/ Tue, 20 Aug 2019 02:04:54 +0000 https://womensagenda.com.au/?p=43970 The sole remaining Fortune 500 company without a woman on its board has finally corrected it’s ill - it's brought a woman on board.

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The sole remaining company on the S&P 500 without a woman on its board has finally appointed a woman to break up its all-male zone.

Last month, Dallas-based Copart Inc, a company that provides online vehicle auction and re-marketing services, appointed Diane Morefield to join its board. The company’s revenue topped $1.5 billion dollars last year and has more than 6,000 employees across 200 locations across the world.

That means all 500 of America’s largest publicly listed companies finally have a woman on their boards.

What might have pushed them and others to such action? It seems advocacy may have helped, including with the very public help of the now famous Fearless Girl statue, along with some US states changing its laws on the matter. In 2018, California passed a law requiring publicly traded companies to have at least one woman on their boards by the end of 2020. By the end of July 2021, boards with five members are required to have at least two women to their boards and boards with six or more members must have at least three women.

Norway, Spain, France and Iceland are pushing even further. These countries all have laws requiring that women comprise at least 40% of boards at publicly listed companies.

Here in Australia? The news isn’t very cheery. Last month, we reported that the Australian Institute of Company Director’s aim of reaching 30% women on boards by the end of 2018 had failed.

Four companies on the ASX200 (Australian Securities Exchange) remain without a single woman on their boards. As of June this year, the all-male boards included HUB24 Limited, mining contractor NRW Holdings Limited, mining group Emeco Holdings Limited and telecommunications and IT company TPG Telecom Limited.

As the S&P experience shows, getting those final boards to appoint a woman can take a long time, with Bloomberg reporting around 86 per cent of S&P 500 companies had at least one woman on their boards in the year 2000 — and the last 14% taking almost 20 to bridge the divide.

The Perth-based mining company NRW has around 2300 employees and a revenue of $1.1 billion in the 2019 financial year. Emeco Holdings share price fell almost 45% during the last financial year, putting them in the top 10 worst ASX200 performers in the 2018/2019 financial year. TPG recently saw total revenue slip 1.7% year-on-year and its proposed $15 billion merger with Vodafone was rejected by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) in May.

Some companies are making great strides in gender equality on boards. Back in May, Future Super became the first super fund to completely exclude investments in companies that have no women on their boards.

So, what’s keeping more women from obtaining Board seats? According to the Wall Street Journal’s Vanessa Fuhrmans, it’s the fact that board seats rarely become available. The average member stays more than a decade, creating few openings. So, there’s little turnover. Furthermore, while companies are appointing more women to board seats at increasing rates, the overall share of female directors remains unchanged.

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Dismally, even some newer companies are failing to achieve balance.

WeWork, the popular shared spaces company for entrepreneurs, freelancers, startups, small businesses and large enterprises, last week released their Initial Public Offering (IPO) which revealed two interesting facts: firstly, they made a loss US$1.6 billion last year and secondly, everyone on their board is a man. 

As we’ve reported here at Women’s Agenda, research shows that companies with strong diversity have better competitive performance, talent management and risk mitigation. Women having a strong voice in the boardroom consistently translates to better financial performance.

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New Zealand prepared to mandate female board directors within private companies https://womensagenda.com.au/politics/new-zealand-prepared-to-mandate-female-board-directors-within-private-companies/ Sun, 08 Jul 2018 22:06:47 +0000 https://womensagenda.com.au/?p=34006 The New Zealand Government is prepared to force private companies to impose quotas to ensure equal representation of women on boards.

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You could never accuse the New Zealand Government of doing things by halves.

According to a new policy pledge, all state boards and committees will be gender equal by 2021 having already reached 46 percent at the end of 2017.

And, last week their Minister for Women, Julie Anne Genter said the government would be prepared to force private companies to do the same; imposing quotas to ensure equal representation of women at the board level.

A gutsy move, given women comprise just 19 percent of board directorships presently.

“We’re awaiting the next report, and I’m keen to see where they get to,” Genter told Television New Zealand’s Q+A program on Sunday.

“If they’re not going to make progress, if it’s going to sit there at 19 per cent, then we might have to start thinking about ways government can incentivise them.”

The NZ government– currently led by the youngest-ever female Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern– is committed to fast tracking equal gender representation and the eradication of the gender pay gap.

Genter said a range of tools and methods were at the government’s disposal to “incentivise” private businesses to adapt, including imposing quotas.

“The evidence is mixed on how successful that is,” she said. “Quotas in some places have been successful, but they also can have perverse consequences. So what I would say is let’s start by putting up the challenge.”

In Australia, the notion of quotas is still a contentious topic, and not one supported by the present government.

In May this year, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull scoffed at the possibility of enforcing quotas at the party level, saying pre-selections were decided by the party membership and the Liberals were a “grassroots” organisation.

“I don’t think a quota system can work in a grassroots political system,” he said. “Everyone calls for democracy in politics. You can’t have it both ways.”

Meanwhile, across private companies, Australia still has a long way to go. Women currently make up 27.7 percent of board positions, according to the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

A soft target led by lobby group, The 30% Club exists, but there is nothing but social pressure driving private organisations to comply.

Although reluctant to mandate gender quotas, Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) chairman Elizabeth Proust, conceded last year it may be the only way to level the playing field.

“Quotas are not on the table for now, but clearly all options will need to be considered,”  she said.

“If we’re not able to see genuinely diverse boards, then governments are likely to take action.”

It seems a conclusion already reached by New Zealand.

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