Turley actively works to recruit women for board positions and is a member of an initiative called “Women on Board,” sponsored by non-profit organization Catalyst, which aims to promote women in business and leadership positions.
According to Catalyst, only about 19% of American corporate boards have provided a seat at the table for a female executive. Unfortunately, the U.S. is not alone among industrialized nations in this regard. Only Norway (35%) and Sweden (29%) put us to shame; not Canada (20.8%), the U.K. (20.8%), Germany (18.5%) and certainly not Japan (about 3%).
Setting quotas and playing the “shame game” seem to have worked in Norway and some other EU countries, but HR and other professionals (both female and male) don’t think that will fly in the U.S. What might work, they say, is pressure from shareholders for boards to diversity among women and minorities; encouraging more board turnover (even while many firms are pushing up mandatory retirement ages); and even developing financial products on Wall Street, like index and exchange-traded funds, that invest in women-led companies.