This week, Kellen Eileen Kariuki was appointed chairperson of the Standard Chartered Bank Kenya board. This is the second “big appointment” in corporate Kenya after Flora Mutahi’s appointment as the first ever female board chair of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa).
Several other women have been appointed to local boards in the past few weeks, including Gloria Ndekei (Vice-Chairperson, Kepsa Foundation), Eva Muraya (Director, Kepsa) and Susan Kagundu (Director, Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry).
It is encouraging to see this push for gender and diversity both in the private and public sector (I wrote about this last week) and very uplifting to see women confidently take up leadership positions.
Ms Kariuki’s appointment reminded me of a research study published in this month’s issue of the Harvard Business Review titled ‘Banks with more women on their boards commit less fraud’. Conducted by Prof Barbara Casu and colleagues from the Cass Business School at City University London, the study found that banks with more female directors faced less fines for misconduct, saving them an eye-watering $7.8 million a year.
The researchers compared board leadership diversity in large European financial institutions against their records of fines. They found that gender diversity did not only guarantee a diverse pool of ideas, it also saved the banks lots of cash.
These appointments are wonderful to read about. They are a testament to the changing times and a great inspiration. However, Prof Casu’s research also points to a more important issue – which I also alluded to last week – that one woman on a board is hardly enough. We need a critical mass of women in these leadership positions to change behaviour and turn around organisational cultures if they are to effect real change.
“We found that you need at least three women to change the dynamic inside a board,” said Prof Casu. “…the effect is even stronger when you have both female directors and women in executive positions.”
The sure-fire way to achieve this critical mass of female leadership on boards – anywhere, really – is for the women who, to use a more recent term, break the “glass labyrinth” to aggressively mentor other women into these positions. Men do it all the time. I think women need to shed this fleeting pride of being the only woman in the room and send the elevator down for other women.
Often, we say that we cannot achieve gender equality without the buy-in of the men.
In reality, women who scale the heights before others have a bigger responsibility and more influence to ensure they leave a trail of future female leaders to take over after them. I hate to sound redundant, but again, men do it all the time.
May the words of Ms Kamala Harris inspire us: “I may be the first woman to hold this office, but I won’t be the last.”
