如何推动女性进入董事会

    相比很多国家，美国在女性权利方面更为进步。但提到推动企业提高女性管理者的地位，欧洲和亚洲国家远远超过美国。

    2012年12月12日，欧盟委员会（European Commission）副主席薇薇安·雷丁公布了由多家欧洲商学院编辑的8,000名可担任董事的女性名单。雷丁正在推行一项立法，拟规定到2020年，欧洲公司的女性董事比例须达到40%。反对者的理由是没有那么多胜任的女性，雷丁认为这份最新名单是“对所有反对者的最好回答”。

    在推动女性进入董事会方面，欧洲比美国的力度更大。2008年，挪威成为首个引入了董事会性别额度的国家。此后，其他欧洲国家相继效法。根据2011年德勤（Deloitte）一份题为《董事会里的女性：全球透视》（Women in the boardroom: a global perspective）报告，比利时、意大利和法国已相继采取官方行动，推动更多女性进入董事会。

    在这方面，领先于美国的地区不只是欧洲一个地方。一些新兴市场在男女平等方面的努力也已超过了美国。2011年，马来西亚内阁批准了该国总理提议的一项法律，规定五年内，在马来西亚上市的公司其董事会女性比率至少达到三分之一。不遵守此项规定的公司将面临摘牌的风险。

    在美国我们不能这么干。“在美国，我们不太喜欢指标，”管理咨询公司Intrabond Capital的CEO唐娜·哈姆林说。另外，她还表示，与一些欧洲国家不同，美国对于董事会成员的服务年限也没有限制，因此更难引入新的女性面孔，即便公司认为这是一种好的管理策略。

    2012年，瑞信（Credit Suisse）一份题为《性别多样化与企业表现》（Gender diversity and corporate performance）的报告指出，女性领导的存在是衡量一家公司投资潜力的可行指标。“通过评测全球2,360家公司过去六年的表现，我们的分析显示，管理委员会中有女性的公司平均而言比没有女性的公司投资回报更高。”

    这让自诩开明通达的美国经理人倍感尴尬。美国的企业文化不喜欢自上而下发号施令和任期限制，但有证据显示，董事会多样性程度更高的企业表现更佳，而多样性程度更高意味着有更多女性成员。美国该怎么做？

    第一步是要承认通过自由市场人才搜寻，短时期内可能无法实现董事会的男女平等。美国企业界历来是男人的天下（而且主要是白人）。寻求人才多样化的领导人或许不得不寻找外部人脉渠道。

    可资参照的一个来源就是上面提到的、可担任董事的8,000位女性名单。“我认识这些女性，知道她们有多能干，”雷丁说。“我相信，如果（董事会）找的是人才，而不是原先的男人圈子，那么女性必能坐上高位。”

    Compared to many countries, the United States is progressive in terms of women's rights. But when it comes to pushing businesses to increase their ranks of female leaders, European and Asian nations leave the U.S. in the dust.

    On December 12, European Commission vice president Vivienne Redding announced a newly launched list compiled by European business schools that contained the names of 8,000 board-ready women. It is, she said, "the answer to all the naysayers" who claim that a lack of qualified women is a reasonable counter-argument to a law she is advocating that would require that women make up 40% of the board members of European companies by 2020.

    The EU is more aggressive about getting women on boards than the United States. Norway was the first country to introduce gender quotas for boards back in 2008. Since then, other European countries have followed suit. According to a 2011 Deloitte report called "Women in the boardroom: a global perspective," Belgium, Italy, and France have taken official actions to put more women in the boardroom.

    Europe is not the only region whooping the U.S. on this front. Some emerging markets are outpacing the United States' gender parity efforts too. In 2011, Malaysia's cabinet approved a law championed by the prime minister that said that in the next five years, companies listed in Malaysia must have boards that are at least one-third female. Companies that don't comply risk being de-listed.

    We can't do that at home. "In the U.S., we don't cotton well to quotas," says Donna Hamlin, CEO of management consulting firm Intrabond Capital. Besides, she says, unlike some European countries, the United States doesn't have term limits for board members, making it harder to bring in fresh, female faces even when a company sees that as a good management strategy.

    According to a 2012 Credit Suisse report called "Gender diversity and corporate performance," the presence of female leaders is a viable indicator of a company's investment potential.  "In testing the performance of 2,360 companies globally over the last six years, our analysis shows that it would on average have been better to have invested in corporates with women on their management boards than in those without."

    That puts open-minded American managers in a tough spot. The U.S. has a business culture that doesn't like top-down mandates or term limits, yet evidence suggests that businesses with more diverse boards perform better, and more diverse boards generally include more women. What to do?

    The first step is to acknowledge that free-market talent searches probably won't result in gender parity on boards any time soon. American business has been a (primarily white) man's game for a long time. Leaders looking for talent diversity may have to look outside established networking channels.

    One place to look is the list of 8,000 board-ready women mentioned above. "I know the women, I know how talented they are," Redding said. "And I have no doubt that when [boards] go for talent and not the old men networks, than certainly, the women will make it to the top."