GlobeWomen E-newsletter Issue LXVIII:  June 16, 2009

11 Women Presidents:

Cristina E. Fernández
de Kirchner
Argentina

Borjana Kristo, Federation of Bosnia

Michelle Bachelet Jeria
Chile

Tarja Halonen
Finland 

Rose Francine Rogombé Gabon

Angela Merkel
Germany

Pratibha Patil
India

Mary McAleese
Ireland

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
Liberia

Dalia Grybauskaite
Lithuania

 Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo The Philippines

Global Summit of Women 2009


* For news videos and photos of the 2009 Global Summit of Women, go to www.globewomen.org, and click to ‘Global Summit of Women,’ courtesy of CNN Chile, trt-news.com and others.

* For GlobeWomen FACEBOOK linking opportunities among Summit participants, go to www.globewomen.com.

* For free advertisement of your product or service, go to www.globewomen.com , and click to “WEXPO”

 

Who are the newcomers among women Presidents and Prime Ministers?

 

Rose Francine Rogombé is currently serving as the Interim President of Gabon following the death of long-time President Omar Bongo in June 2009. She constitutionally succeeded Bongo due to her role as President of the Senate, a post to which she was elected in February 2009. She is a lawyer by profession and a member of the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG). Her presidency makes her the first female head of state of Gabon.

 

Dalia Grybauskaitė is the current President-elect of Lithuania. In the May 17 election, Ms. Grybauskaitė won in a landslide, receiving 68.18% of the vote. In winning the election, she became not only the first female president of Lithuania, but won by the largest margin recorded in presidential elections. She will assume the post on July 12, 2009. She was previously Lithuania's Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Finance Minister, and European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget.

 

Jóhanna Sigurđardóttir became Iceland's first female Prime Minister on 1 February 2009. She had previously been Iceland’s Minister of Social Affairs and Social Security from 1987–1994 and 2007–2009. She has been a member of the Althingi (Iceland's parliament) for Reykajavic constituencies since 1978, winning re-election on eight successive occasions, making her Iceland's longest-serving member of Parliament. She is also the world's first openly gay head of government of the modern era.

 

Percentage of Women Directors
in 23 Countries


For a look at where women are in terms of board directorships in several countries, Corporate Women Directors International, which has conducted reports on women directors globally for 11 years, has compiled a listing of 23 countries for which data is currently available as to percentages of women directors. Click to the following link to access these findings: www.globewomen.org/CWDI/CWDI.htm.

 

THIS ISSUE'S HIGHLIGHTS:

I.     UPDATE ON WOMEN LEADING NATIONS: IS THERE PROGRESS AT THE TOP?
II.     WOMEN ON CORPORATE BOARDS - DO QUOTAS WORK?
III.     GENDER GAP IN NEW BUSINESS CREATION
IV.      INTRODUCING SAUDI ARABIA'S FIRST WOMAN MINISTER

 

I.     UPDATE ON WOMEN LEADING NATIONS: IS THERE PROGRESS AT THE TOP?

The Global Summit of Women recently released the 2009 update on its ongoing research on women’s progress to leadership roles in government globally, which it began in 2004. With the recent addition of three women leading Gabon, Lithuania and Iceland, there are now 17 women serving as Presidents or Prime Ministers or 8.7% among top government leaders in 195 economies. This is an increase from 5.7% in 2004, when only 11 women held these executive positions.

 

“As promising as this incremental progress may seem, it’s clear that the numbers of women running nations is as paltry as those of women running corporations worldwide,” stated Summit President Irene Natividad. This current crop of government leaders comes primarily from the European region (47%), both from established democracies such as Germany and Finland, as well as emerging nations such as Moldova and Ukraine.
 
 
 
Looking at the second tier of government leaders, there is better news. Currently, there are 33 women Vice Presidents or Deputy Prime Ministers, or 16.9% among those holding these positions in 195 economies. This is double the number of women in these positions in 2004, when there were only 16 or 8.2%. Summit President Natividad adds: “These are encouraging numbers, since these women present a pool of possible candidates for the top leadership role in their respective countries.”
 
 
 
Grouping these government executives together – presidents, prime ministers, vice presidents and deputy prime ministers – indicates that 25% of all nations (50 out of 195) now have women at or near the top of government leadership. (For a complete listing of 2009 women government executives, log on to www.globewomen.com.)  
 

 


II.     WOMEN ON CORPORATE BOARDS - DO QUOTAS WORK?


Adding to the mounting studies that show diverse corporate boards achieve higher financial performance, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CALPERS) released a report in February, which showed that companies with a higher ratio of diverse board seats “exceeded average returns of the Dow Jones and NASDAQ indices over a five-year period.” (Source: www.calpers.ca.gov)
 
Creating that diverse board, however, has yet to happen in many companies globally, where the most recent research from several countries indicates incremental gain. Norway stands as a beacon for its now famous strategy of mandating that 40% of board seats in all its companies must be held by women by 2008. A report from Egon Zehnder International shows Norway as having the highest proportion of female board members in the world at 44% European boards average around 9% female board representation, with the U.K. and the Netherlands at 12%. The United States, with its more free market culture, has women holding 14.7% of corporate board seats, despite ongoing efforts to increase those numbers largely from women’s groups.
 
Spain has replicated Norway’s approach to board diversity by requiring 40-50% of board directors being female, with the difference of a more extended deadline of 2015, and without the threat of a company’s dissolution for noncompliance. Iceland already requires that 50% of board seats must be held by women in government-owned companies, similar to South Africa’s requirement of 30%. Other countries are watching Norway’s ‘experiment’ at a time when there’s a call for new economic leadership. Clearly, Norway’s quotas have worked to bring in more women onto corporate boards, and the old fears of there not being enough qualified candidates and inexperience in corporate governance being a detriment to a smoothly functioning board have not transpired. Will this strategy work for other countries? That question still remains to be answered. (Source: Financial Times, 6/15/09)

 


III.     GENDER GAP IN NEW BUSINESS CREATION

Women have become enormously active as entrepreneurs globally, but progress has been uneven in different regions. A study of 41 countries representing 70% of the world’s population and 93% of global GDP by Babson College in the U.S. shows that entrepreneurial activity was higher in low and middle-income countries, and significantly higher in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In both these regions, there is also a higher level of early stage entrepreneurship signaling that women small business owners are now significant contributors to economic growth in those countries. In Japan and Peru in 2007, women were more active than men in starting a business.

In high income countries, there is no gender difference in the survival rate of women’s businesses versus those of men. However, those women-owned businesses in low and middle-income countries tended to be less likely than male-owned enterprises to last beyond 42 months.

In both developing economies in Eastern Europe as well as in the developed economies of Western Europe, the study found low rates of women’s entrepreneurship, while those in Latin America and the Caribbean have rates of entrepreneurial activity that are two to three times higher. Since entrepreneurship is driven by need, some economists have suggested that Europe’s cradle-to-grave social welfare benefits do not provide women incentives to risky economic activity such as entrepreneurship. (Source: www.management-issues.com, 3/10/09).

 


IV.      INTRODUCING SAUDI ARABIA'S FIRST WOMAN MINISTER

When Time magazine came out with its 2009 list of “100 Most Influential People”, Ranked number 11 was Saudi Arabia’s new Deputy Minister for Women’s Education, Norah Al-Faiz – the first woman to be appointed minister in Saudi history. In a country where women are not allowed to drive, to work alongside men, or just to work in some instances, this appointment was a significant step.

A graduate of King Saud University in Riyadh and Utah State University for her master’s in education, Deputy Minister al Faiz was the Director General of the women’s section at the Institute of Public Administration, a position she held since 1993. She also served as Controller of Education Techniques at the Institute of Private Education within the Ministry of Education. Her appointment as Deputy Minister is the highest rank ever attained by any women in Saudi Arabia.

A participant at the Ministerial Roundtable at this year’s Global Summit of Women hosted by Chile – the first international women’s conference that she had ever attended according to her – Deputy Minister Nora al-Faiz indicated that her appointment “is an honor not only for me but for all Saudi women.” She knows she faces challenges in a conservative society but also feels that there will be opportunities to create positive change for the women in her country.