Illustration: Cathy Wilcox
EVERYONE will be waiting for the cry "and they're racing" at the Cox Plate tomorrow. But there is a greater cry being heard around the country today. It's the cry to drop the barriers to women, bringing the full force of their capacities to the boardrooms of Australia. The corporate world needs to catch up with the rest of the world, including the track.
Years ago it was that great gelding Phar Lap who carried the hopes of a nation to 14 wins in a row - a feat only matched a couple of weeks ago by the mare Black Caviar. She's odds-on to break the great record tomorrow when she runs in the Schweppes Stakes with jockey Luke Nolen guiding her home.
Total female domination might have been achievable if one of the famous Payne sisters was in the saddle: Michelle, for instance - the reigning queen from a family of many female jockeys. And it's worth remembering that the female jockey trend was started by the remarkable Linda Jones from New Zealand more than 30 years ago.
More female winners are at present being planned for by Finance Minister Penny Wong, who recently released new guidelines for government business enterprises which require that by 2015, "no one gender can hold more than 60 per cent of board positions". Charlie wonders how many genders there are but assumes it means neither men nor women can be more than 60 per cent of the total.
Big business is starting to make some advances on this issue with women comprising 26 per cent of all new appointments to ASX boards in 2011, compared with only 5 per cent in 2009 and 8 per cent in the two prior years. Non-profits have been at the fore with 30 per cent of board positions being women and the group of eight universities have 37 per cent. State governments are also setting a pace. New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria have committed to 50 per cent of all new board appointments going to women by the end of next year.
But the number of women is still far too low. At the end of August, in fact, women were only 13 per cent of all the members of the ASX 200 boards. But the race is on and the Institute of Company Directors points out the success of chairmen's mentoring programs, in which people such as Don Argus and Ziggy Switkowski have supported women into the ranks.
The push is on because it makes business sense. How can a country realise its potential if it denies itself the capacities of 50 per cent of its people?
We have known for many years that women make the key purchasing decisions; 75.1 per cent of women identified themselves as the primary shoppers for their households, according to Mediamark Research & Intelligence's Survey of the American Consumer in 2009 and, according to a study from the Boston Consulting Group, women ''control $12 trillion of the overall $18.4 trillion in global consumer spending''.
In Australia more than half (53 per cent) of our professional classes are women and in our industry, media and marketing departments have always pushed hard to get women to higher levels.
With all that economic power and key decision-making capability, why wouldn't any board in the country, profit or non-profit, want as many women as possible to guide its business to the market and to its customers?
Back women. That's the message.
Harold Mitchell is the executive chairman of Mitchell Communication Group.
