Turn back the tide of white male accountants

When Prue Leith, multiple non-executive director, writer and former restaurateur, joined the board of a building society in the early 80's, the chairman introduced her to shareholders thus: "You can see she's very good-looking and I can promise you she won't burn her bra."

That was then. Such remarks would not be tolerated these days, at least not in public. But has the "women-are-an-alien-species" mindset really shifted? When a headhunter recently approached Jane Tozer, a non-executive director of 3i European Technology Trust, as a "perfect match" for a directorship, she was assured the board wanted to break with tradition and avoid hiring another male accountant. "I got on very well with the chairman and the chief exec," she says. "But the next person they saw, who happened to be a personal friend of mine, was an accountant. They fell in love with him and they appointed him. They could identify with him. He was a white, male accountant."

The statistics back up her experience. Women hold only 6 per cent of non-executive posts, 4 per cent of executives posts and fewer than 1 per cent of chairmanships on the boards of UK listed companies - figures highlighted by the Derek Higgs review. These are strikingly low numbers compared with other professions, and with the fact that women make up about 30 per cent of company managers, said Mr Higgs.

Ms Tozer was fortunate in one respect: she had an interview. Astonishingly, only 4 per cent of the non-executives surveyed for the Higgs review had a formal interview. His report criticises board's reliance on personal contact and on candidates with previous experience. It calls for fair, transparent recruitment and a widening of the pool to include senior managers and non-commercial people. Unlike other recommendations, the idea that boards should be more "diverse" has attracted little controversy. Is this because chairman do not think it will happen to any great extent and therefore do not see it as a threat?

"This is because investors are in the process of lining up good managers ready for the new year".

A rare opportunity to hear the views of women directors arose recently at an all-female lunch hosted by Directorbank, and executive search group. In a frank exchange about the Higgs report and the barriers facing women, those present said boards, headhunters and individual women all needed to rethink their approach. Boards spend too little time considering their own composition, according to Ms Leith, who chairs the board of governors of Ashridge Business School and is a non-executive at Woolworths and Whitbread. "There's a real job for the headhunters here, a job of teaching boards what (is available) and what they can get. Because now boards want women - but they don't know how to go about it."

Mr Higgs has asked Laura Tyson, dean of London Business School, to lead a search and draw up a list of 100 suitable candidates from the professional services, the public sector and charities. But Teresa Robson-Capps, managing director of customer care at Great Universal Stores, the retail group that owns Argos, said the search should include the corporate world where "there's an awful lot of capability that has been untapped".

Research by Deloitte and Touche suggests that up to 500 directorships will become vacant if FTSE 350 companies comply with the Higgs' recommendation that half the board members should be independent non-executives. Ann Burdus, a non-executive director of Prudential and Next, said women with financial training should be able to snap up such posts, particularly on audit committees. But are too many women climbing the wrong career ladder for board appointments? They are often concentrated in areas such as human resources and customer services, rather than 'hard' disciplines of finances and general management that boards look to for candidates, said Janet Rubin, a non-exec at SHL, the recruitment and psychometric testing group.

Ms Robson-Capps countered the customer services is about 'hard' not 'soft' skills. "If you're interfacing with your customers, that's what driving performance is all about, " she said. It is apparently shared by Mr Higgs, who says that HR, change management and customer care roles involve issues important to boards and attributes that are "highly relevant" to the boardroom.

Networks are often promoted as a way to help women advance. Many women-only networks have sprung up in recent years but, while they enable women to learn from others' experience, they do not provide the contact that prospective candidates need with male chairmen. There is a catch-22 here. As Ms Leith put it: "I've done far more inter-sex networking since I've been a non-executive director. She proposed a vehicle to publicise female talent to boardrooms, in much the way that the Wharton and Harvard year books promote their alumni to prospective employers. One suggestion was that the government could promote a list that included women from the private and public sectors.

Not everyone sees this as the answer. Elisabeth Marx, a director of Hanover Fox, the international search group, who has written on the subject of boardroom diversity, says a public list for database smacks of a mechanistic approach. Although it might be a starting-point, she argues that it is up to women to analyse their skills and to target companies where they think they can make a unique contribution.

The need to be proactive was underlined at the lunch. "Women have to make it more obvious that's what they want, " said Carol Arrowsmith, a partner at Deloitte & Touche. "If they don't ask for it, there's a reasonable prospect they won't get it."

Given the heavy responsibility, risk and scrutiny involved in being a director of a large company, what makes the job appealing? "The main pleasure is the glory," said Ms Leith. Yes, there are piles of paperwork and lots of boring meetings interspersed with occasional excitement. "But I wouldn't not do it. I'm honest enough to enjoy the fact that I'm on a couple of FTSE 100 companies and it impresses the hell out of the guys."

Ms Burdus enjoyed the intellectual challenges of being on a good board; and Ms Robson-Capps described "the buzz" from helping businesses avoid trouble and grow, creating wealth and jobs.

All agreed that training was a priority for all non-executives. The job was about asking probing questions but it was important to do this in a way that retained the board's trust and respect, said Elizabeth Filkin, the former parliamentary commissioner for standards, who is an audit commissioner and non-executive chair of Stanelco, an engineering company.

This balance must be the toughest and most important part of being an independent director. Will women be any better than their male colleagues at resisting the temptations of boardroom collegiality and cosiness? The goal of greater diversity makes business sense but will it be pointless unless the new recruits to boardroom are prepared to be constructive pains-in-the-neck on behalf of shareholders.