There are calls on industry regulators, research centres and other such agencies for a database of females who can take on roles as board members in different sectors of the economy.
This is aimed at creating gender diversity and a proper female board member succession plan in Nigerian companies, according to speakers at the Society for Corporate Governance Nigeria (SCGN) International Women’s Day (IWD) roundtable.
“Institute of directors can be on hand to champion a database of potential top women managers and executives considered eligible for board appointments,” Edmund Onuzo, guest speaker and board chairman GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nig Plc.
At the event themed ‘The Board-ready Female: Modelling Ethical Leadership and Driving Transformation’ on Thursday, Onuzo said that in this digital age, women’s organisations should set up an independent database application or site that seeks potential candidates for board succession planning.
Mary Akpobome, chief operating officer Imperium Capital Partners, spoke on how important such data is and how it will shape the future.
“Every year we celebrate IWD, talking about gender issues but data like this [database] will show us how we’ve progressed each year or in the next six months,” she said.
Conversations on regulators and companies setting policies and specific quotas to enable women as board members were also raised at the event.
Enase Okonedo, vice-chancellor Pan-Atlantic University mentioned that research showed that in 2021, 23.4 percent of board directorships of the NGX’s top 20 companies by market capitalisation are held by women. This percentage is higher than that of the global average of 19.7 percent as reported by Deloitte in 2021.
Most of these women, Okonedo said are from financial services which can be linked to the CBN regulation of having 30 percent female representation on the board of banks.
She mentioned that of the regulators such as the CBN, Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), and The Nigeria Code of Corporate Governance, only CBN specified a quota of 30 percent while the others weren’t specific.
The importance of having gender-diverse board members was highlighted by several speakers.
Enase mentioned that research has shown that having a gender-diverse board boosts a company’s reputation, increases engagement amongst board members, and increases the output of board members.
“Research says that women directors are more likely to address social issues,” she said.
There was also an emphasis to coach more women from Medium, Small, and Micro Enterprises (MSME) into becoming a board of directors.
Clare Omatseye, MD/CEO of JNC International Ltd, mentioned that the same set of women are recycled as board members of different organisations and one of the ways to encourage more women to be board members is to look into women in MSME.
“Regulators should encourage proper corporate governance in MSMES as most of them are women,” Clare said.
Isaac Orolugbagbe, CEO of Accelstra Limited said only women in corporate organisations get most of the attention and they are but a fraction of the pool of women leaving out women in smaller businesses.
“Most women are in small enterprises, these small enterprises need to be coached into being big and successful enterprises,” Orolugbagbe said.
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