Our thanks to Jeff for this. The 10 “excuses” from the ridiculous government-backed Hampton-Alexander Review, all of which seem to me to be either invented or reasonable:
- “I don’t think women fit comfortably into the board environment”
- “There aren’t that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board – the issues covered are extremely complex”
- “Most women don’t want the hassle or pressure of sitting on a board”
- “Shareholders just aren’t interested in the make-up of the board, so why should we be?”
- “My other board colleagues wouldn’t want to appoint a woman on our board”
- “All the ‘good’ women have already been snapped up”
- “We have one woman already on the board, so we are done – it is someone else’s turn”
- “There aren’t any vacancies at the moment – if there were I would think about appointing a woman”
- “We need to build the pipeline from the bottom – there just aren’t enough senior women in this sector”
- “I can’t just appoint a woman because I want to”
