Since launching Campaign for Merit in Business in 2012, I haven’t seen any signs of resistance from businesses or business organizations to the drive for more women on boards. Indeed, they’ve often been the keenest on the mad direction of travel. So you can probably imagine my excitement at this piece by Simon Foy in today’s Sunday Telegraph, sent by Jeff. The start of the piece:

Rules demanding that companies report gender diversity and net zero targets are damaging Britain’s competitiveness, regulators have been warned. Two influential advisory groups to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), composed of a host of City heavyweights, said that the “comply or explain” regime has become too rigid. In a joint response to the FCA’s primary markets review, they said: “The ‘comply or explain’ regime has in reality become ‘comply or else’ and, as such, we believe that it is acting as a constraint on the discretion and efficacy of boards as the delegated managers of issuers. “This is ultimately to the detriment of the UK when compared to competitor jurisdictions.”

The two advisory groups are the Joint Listing Authority Advisory Panel and the Markets Practitioner Panel. I shall be contacting both organizations, but in the meantime I’ve left the following comments (the article has attracted 300+ comments since it was published less than five hours ago).

The drive for greater gender diversity on boards was based on a lie, that companies could expect better financial results if they appointed more women onto their boards. In 2012 I presented evidence (from numerous longitudinal studies) to House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries. The evidence showed a causal link between increasing gender diversity on boards and corporate fnancial DECLINE. That evidence: https://c4mb.uk/improving-gender-diversity-on-boards-leads-to-a-decline-in-corporate-performance-the-evidence/ I’ve challenged many high-profile proponents of “more women on boards” to provide evidence of a causal link with improved performance, and they’ve never come up with anything. The most recent challenges, last December, included a challenge of Helena Morrissey, founder of The 30% Club in 2010: https://c4mb.uk/2022/12/14/women-on-boards-our-public-challenge-of-four-leading-proponents-2/ It is time to end the “women on boards” scam. Mike Buchanan CAMPAIGN FOR MERIT IN BUSINESS http://c4mb.uk

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