www.womanthismonth.com February 2021 51 OPINION There is a positive outlook on our horizon, especially when we consider the initiatives taken by our country to empower women and position them as an integral part of the society. This includes the Supreme Council for Women (SCW) and the broad initiatives undertaken by it, such as launching the National Model of Gender Balance. Another example is ‘Women in FinTech Bahrain’ – the professional network founded under the umbrella of the Economic Development Board (EDB) to raise awareness of women’s role in FinTech. Nevertheless, by looking at the statistics and figures – 90.2% men to 9.8% women in a sample of 117 organizations (public/private) in December 2020 who are Board Members demonstrates the current situation clearly. Deloitte’s sixth edition report titled ‘Women in the boardroom: A global perspective’ issued in 2019, quotes Dan Konigsburg, “These statistics are hardly encouraging for those who believe in the value of board diversity. At this rate, we – or our children and grandchildren – will have to wait until 2052 to reach anything close to parity”. Similarly, by looking at the global perspective as an indication, the average increase of women representation in boardrooms is around 1% every year. So, if we do the math, we will require around 40 years to reach a women representation of 50% in boardrooms globally. In Deloitte’s report published in 2019, it also stated that globally, women hold just 16.9% of board seats. This indicates that we are below the global rate by 7.1%. However, our numbers are better than some of the countries in the GCC and Middle East. I personally believe that women are a key to economic development, given that women make up a large portion of the customer market, yet they are barely represented in boardrooms. Ignoring this portion of our population will certainly deprive us universally from reaching the gender diversity we are aspiring to achieve, which in turn may have a negative impact on organisations in terms of business outcomes, strategic decision making, profit margins, workplace culture, innovation, and even reflect on their reputations when they communicate about values (e.g. gender diversity) that are not practiced at senior levels. This leads to some other big questions such as: Despite all these national efforts to empower women, why do boardroom figures not reflect this? What gets in the way of women? Do nations require a quota for women in boardrooms to make it possible? What does it take to be a board member? Eman is an accredited Chartered Manager (CMI), professional management consultant and a published author. She is a certified PMP, PRINCE2, COBIT5, CGEIT and the first Bahraini Be sure to read the next issue of Woman This Month to explore Part 2 of The Path to the Boardroom.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Mjk0MTkxMQ==