Want to restore public trust? PLACE WOMEN ON BOARDS

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, is there anything leaders can do to win back the consumers’ trust?

A Survey by HEIDRICK AND STRUGGLES  of 400 corporate directors where, 65% of women directors said that greater diversity on the board would help rebuild trust.

Both men and women directors equally professed commitment to diversity as a priority, though only half felt the boards were doing much about it. In fact, the number of women on Fortune 500 company boards remains only around 15%.

As always, there is much discussion about finding qualified women to get on boards. Most boards require operating experience, which makes sense.  Poets and advocates don’t have a lot of credibility.
But Gwin reports that boards increasingly want chief executive officers, not measly senior vice presidents and the like. On top of that, greater scrutiny and regulatory oversight — not to mention the occasional Congressional grilling — means that directors have to have enough bandwidth to bone up on the industry of the boards they’re on, and even show up at meetings. That shrinks the pool even further.