10 Top Canadian Boards According to Gender Diversity

Being a Canadian call centre that takes great pride in its CSR business efforts we are always interested in studies that focus on corporate sustainability or diversity efforts being made on a national scale. I have featured many of these reports here such as the 50 Best Corporate Citizens in Canada 2012, the 30 Top Green Organizations in Canada According to Employee Engagement, the 55 Greenest Canadian Employers 2012, the 50 Top Diversity Employers in Canada 2012, the Top 50 Canadian CSR Business List and Canada’s Top Employers for 2013. Today I am thrilled to be adding to this list with a ranking of Female Representation on Canadian boards released by Corporate Knights (CK) “a media, research and financial products company focused on quantifying and animating clean capitalism drivers for decision makers.” CK began its Leadership Diversity Index 6 years ago and it includes a female representation ranking along with a visible minority ranking on Canadian boards.

The methodology used by CK for this female representation ranking is a formula they have employed in previous rankings and it is based on data obtained “from fiscal 2011 [reports] and is for the 130 public and private companies in the universe considered for the Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada. CK looked at the percentage of board members that are women, and found the percentage based on total directors assessed.” According to the CK ranking, the top ten Canadian boards for gender diversity are:

1. Vancouver City Savings Credit Union – Sector: financials. Score: 66.67%
2. Mountain Equipment Co-op – Sector: consumer discretionary. Score: 55.55%
3. Hydro-Québec – Sector: utilities. Score: 43.75%
4. Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec – Sector: financials. Score: 42.86%
5. Shoppers Drug Mart Corp – Sector: consumer staples. Score: 40%
6. The Jean Coutu Group – Sector: consumer staples. Score: 38.46%
7. Laurentian Bank of Canada – Sector: financials. Score: 38.46%
8. Toronto-Dominion Bank – Sector: financials. Score: 37.50%
9. HSBC Bank Canada – Sector: financials. Score: 33.33%
10. Hydro One – Sector: utilities. Score: 33.33%

“Utilities, financial organizations, insurance and retail companies tend to be more gender diverse than the manufacturing and resource extraction sectors.” There have been studies that show having women in positions of power has a positive impact on a company’s bottom line and overall success. According to CK a Dow Jones VentureSource study released in October 2012 based on data accumulated between 1999 and 2011 found that “successful start-ups had demonstrably more women in senior positions than unsuccessful ones.” CK also referenced The Credit Suisse Research Institute that determined that since 2006 on a global scale “large companies with female-friendly boards performed 26 per cent better than those with men-only boards.”

“Progress is being made domestically, with 85 per cent of the Canadian companies ranked this year having a female board member.” Although, “only 10.3 per cent of overall Canadian board members are female, meaning that only select companies have gone beyond adding one woman to the board.” According to experts from the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland  “only the presence of three or more women on the board leads men to view them as more than just female directors. The women, too, say they feel less self-conscious and less concerned about representing their gender” they wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

The nonprofit group Catalyst, places Canada 14th on board gender diversity globally and that’s just embarrassing. Progress may have been made but not nearly as much as should have already occurred here. Come on Canada – you can do better than that because you are better than that (or at least you should be).

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.