Editorial: One small step for women, one giant step for mankind – The Northern Miner

John M. Valley

Sep 23, 2020

In a recent article for The Northern Miner, author Trish Saywell discusses the recent appointment of Jane Fraser as the next CEO of Citigroup, the third largest bank in the United States, which prompted her to examine the stats relating to female leadership in Canada and in the mining industry, in particular. While she found that there isn’t much data on CEOs, she was able to source more stats on female representation on boards, turning to Osler’s fifth annual report on diversity disclosure practices for information relating to women in leadership roles at TSX-listed companies.

According to the article, the report “noted that as of July 31, 2019, just 3.5% of the 685 companies providing diversity disclosure have a woman in the role of chief executive officer. The number drops to 1.7% of the 54 companies providing disclosure on S&P/TSX 60 companies — a stock market index of 60 large companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange…. It found that women held over 18.1% of board seats among the 657 disclosing companies on the TSX, up 50% since 2015, when the percentage was 12%. The number rises to 30.2% among the 53 members of the S&P/TSX 60 index that provided diversity disclosure.”

According to the article, the Osler report also noted that 50% of New Gold’s directors last year were women, and based on a recent conversation the author had with John Valley, a leader in the firm’s Corporate Governance Group and one of the report’s co-authors, “it appears that the boards of at least two other mining companies will feature 50% female directors in this year’s report.”

That article also states that “of the 41 companies that the report indicated had disclosed that they set targets for the representation of women in executive officer positions, six were mining companies (Iamgold, Sherritt International, SSR Mining, Denison Mines, Osisko Gold Royalties and Eldorado Gold). As of mid-2019, only seven TSX-listed mining companies disclosed that 50% or more of their executive officers were women: Balmoral Resources, INV Metals, Nickel Creek Platinum, UEX Corp., Trilogy Metals, Lucara Diamond and Sulliden Mining Capital.”

For more information, including further findings from Osler’s 2019 Diversity Disclosure Practices report, read Trish Saywell’s full article “Editorial: One small step for women, one giant step for mankind” in The Northern Miner.