ACSI calls for more gender balance in leadership positions

The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors is calling for greater gender diversity at the top in Australia’s 200 biggest listed companies.

Women make up just 9.5 per cent of chair roles and 6.5 per cent of CEO positions across Australia’s top 200 companies.

The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors is calling for greater gender diversity at the top in Australia’s 200 biggest listed companies.

Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, the powerful superannuation group, whose members include 34 Australian and international asset owners and institutional investors with over $1 trillion in funds under management, said boards were “creeping” toward the gender balanced target of 40 per cent women, but leadership positions remain overwhelmingly male-dominated.

Women make up just 9.5 per cent of chair roles and 6.5 per cent of CEO positions across the top 200 companies, according to ACSI analysis.

The state of gender diversity on boards is somewhat better, with women now accounting for more than 36 per cent of board seats in the ASX50 and almost 35 per cent in the ASX200. In the ASX300 there are seven companies that still have no women on their boards.

“More needs to be done to address the gender imbalance in leadership positions at Australia’s largest companies,” ACSI CEO Louise Davidson said.

“While it is encouraging that the number of women on boards continues to rise, more needs to be done to boost the number of female chairs and CEOs. And we expect those boards without any women at all to remedy the imbalance.”

Sexual harassment scandals at some of Australia’s largest companies reinforced the importance of board and executive accountability, she added.

Top executives at QBE and AMP are among those that have been embroiled in such scandals in recent years.

At Rio Tinto, meanwhile, a review of its workplace culture recently found 21 complaints of actual or attempted rape or sexual assault over the past five years.

Alongside the push for more women in leadership roles, ACSI is still calling for women to make up at least 40 per cent of board positions.

“There is still much work to be done to achieve the gender-balanced targets,” Ms Davidson said.

“There also remains a profound challenge to further boost female representation in board and executive leadership positions.”

A recent report from Dutch group Equileap ranked Australian property company Mirvac number one in the world for gender equality among a field of almost 4000 publicly listed companies.

The Equileap Global Report on Gender Equity in 2022 also found Australian companies had outperformed their peers, with twenty-three Australian companies rank in the top 100 based on 19 criteria including gender balance across the workforce, the gender pay gap and policies on paid parental leave and sexual harassment.

But the gender gap at the top C-suite level appears to be common thread across global corporates: of the 4,000 surveyed companies, just 5 per cent had a female CEO, 13 per cent had a female CFO and 7 per cent had a female chair.

Originally published as ACSI calls for more gender balance in leadership positions