Targets, not mandated quotas, are considered more appropriate for achieving gender equity in boardrooms.

And more women on boards does not necessarily translate to more females in an industry.

These were the issues discussed at last week’s CEO Voice roundtable event, hosted by the Australian Institute of Management WA and WestBusiness.

Male and female leaders across multiple sectors discussed ways to address the under-representation of women in boardrooms and asked: should there be a quota for female board positions?

Committee for Perth chief executive Marion Fulker said recent research found women represented 8.7 per cent of board positions and 9.5 per cent of C-Suite positions in WA.

She said a mandated quota might address the lack of representation at boardroom level but would not necessarily flow on to other parts of a company.

“While other countries like Norway have adopted a 30 or 40 per cent quota, we have not seen that trickle down effect in Norway or other countries,” Ms Fulker said.

“Because women from the middle ranks weren’t getting to the executive they are not getting to boards. We are talking about Norway solving a problem, but they are only solving one problem.”

Bendigo Bank State manager WA Simone Ellul said there should be a greater focus on encouraging women into leadership roles across an organisation.

“In the organisation I’m involved in the board is good, the executive is good, but as soon as you go down below those levels the number of women in senior leadership roles are very minimal,” she said. “If we don’t start somewhere and see some strict focus I don’t know if we’ll ever be seeing change.”

Camera Icon Left row from bottom: Meredith Hammat, Janet Barnes, Alison Gaines, Gerard Daniels, Shayne Silcox. Centre row from bottom: Marion Fulker, Jennifer Lawrence, Simone Ellul, Alison Robertson, John Byrne. Right row from bottom: Gary Martin, Sasha Pendal, Chris Sutherland, Tania Cecconi, Pat Hall. Credit: Mogens Johansen

Shayne Silcox, chief executive at the City of Melville, said women filling varied roles in the workplace was a relatively recent phenomenon.

“Here we are expecting the same type of outcome in relation to numbers,” he said.

Dr Silcox said he believed that as greater numbers of women flowed through the system, more would naturally end up on boards.

“I think there are some social changes that have occurred and it’s only a matter of a few generations for that social change to wash through,” he said.

“You will start to see naturally higher numbers of women because they are more educated and we look for talented people.”

Lavan partner Alison Robertson disagreed with Dr Silcox’s view on generational change and said issues of gender equity must be addressed.

“I don’t think we can wait for a generational change to occur naturally on its own,” she said.

“There is the gender pay gap, superannuation difficulties — that’s got to be driven from the top down.”

UnionsWA secretary Meredith Hammat said the gender pay gap needed attention.

“Even though 40 years ago we said there should be equal pay for men and women, the reality is there’s still a 25 per cent gap and it has got worse in WA in recent times,” she said.

“You couldn’t rely on the fact it would close over time.

“We need to get serious about what we need to do to change that gap — part of that may be quotas but also what are we doing to encourage that talent pool.”

The issue of whether quotas would invite accusations of tokenism was widely debated.

Equal Opportunity Commission Acting Commissioner John Byrne said we should be looking more broadly at diversity in business and turned the tokenism argument on its head by asking: “If you are a white Anglo-Saxon male with 90 per cent white Anglo-Saxon males on the board, shouldn’t you worry if you are the right person for the job?”

There is the gender pay gap, superannuation difficulties — that’s got to be driven from the top down.

Dr Byrne said getting more women on boards should not necessarily be the priority.

“It is broader than just women,” he said. “Do we really want Aboriginals and people with disabilities living in poverty when they can work?

“People have a basic right to work, we’ve got a huge economic problem in this country.”

Programmed managing director Chris Sutherland said the issue had its genesis in the education system.

“Education is a fundamental issue — 25 per cent of all girls don’t do maths after year 10,” he said.

“If you have a gender balance in all subject areas that will solve challenges going forward.”

Gerard Daniels general manager Asia Pacific Alison Gaines is part of the 30 per cent club, an international group aimed at bringing women participation on boards to 30 per cent by 2018.

Females currently make up 25.4 per cent of board positions in companies on the ASX 200.

Dr Gaines said most boards wanted more diversity in their membership but if the 30 per cent female target was not reached by next year then mandating quotas might be an option.

“There is a sense that if we can’t use the target to get people there ... I expect the next option is to get people looking at quotas,” she said.

CEOs for Gender Equity executive director Tania Cecconi said it was important to recognise the complexities around merit selection and quotas.

“It needs to be said that quotas and merit-based selection are not mutually exclusive — it is not an and/or proposition,” she said.

Brightwater Group chief executive Jennifer Lawrence said merit should outweigh any target or quota.

“I feel personally uncomfortable that as a CEO I would need to hit a target, I feel the same when it comes to boards,” she said.

“Everybody that’s appointed to a board, it needs to be because of their merits.”

HBF executive general manager member relations Sasha Pendal said she had an agnostic approach to gender.

“Women are just as capable of making poor decisions at executive and board level as men and just as capable of making high quality decisions as men,” she said.

Telstra Country Wide Central West director Janet Barnes said change needed to occur from the grassroots level.

I feel personally uncomfortable that as a CEO I would need to hit a target, I feel the same when it comes to boards.

“To say we’ve got 9.5 per cent representation here is quite deplorable,” she said.

“We’ve got some amazing organisations, businesses and talent, we need to look further and broader as far as how we fill our talent pipelines.”

The Dichotomy Group chief executive Pat Hall said companies should be looking beyond a 30 per cent target for women on boards.

“I know that’s a start,” he said.

He said that in his experience the best boards to work on comprised more women than men.