Andrew MacDougall
Sep 16, 2018
With Osler’s fourth annual report on diversity disclosure practices (the Report) revealing that gender diversity is stagnating at the executive level, Osler partner and Report co-author Andrew MacDougall tells The Globe and Mail that it is “harder to effect change at the executive level than in the boardroom.” In her article, author Alexandra Posadzki discusses the results from Osler’s Diversity Disclosure Practices 2018 Report, which provides an extensive review and analysis of diversity disclosure practices by TSX-listed companies. The results reveal that while gender diversity in boardrooms is slowly improving, the number of female executive officers has not changed much since 2015. Andrew, who specializes in corporate governance, explains.
“These are people you’re bringing up through your organization, so you need to have a plan that’s going to develop leaders within the organization,” Andrew tells The Globe and Mail. “You aren’t going to have the same degree of turnover in your senior executive ranks” as in the board of directors.
The article explains how Canadian securities regulators introduced a “comply or explain” policy a few years ago, but the pace of change at the board level has still been slow. Andrew says that at the current rate, “it will take decades before women hold 50 per cent of the board seats at large public companies.”
If you subscribe to The Globe and Mail online, read author Alexandra Posadzki’s article “TSX-listed firms see more women on boards, but top tier still stagnant: report.”