Women Board Members in Tech Companies: Strategies for Building High Performing Diverse Boards
About this ebook
"We studied 581 public technology companies in the U.S. and Canada with at least $100 million in revenues. What we found in many ways is encouraging: large public tech companies are embracing women on their boards," said Dora Vell, CEO of Vell Executive Search. "But there is still room for growth, especially in smaller companies."
According to the report, 411 companies have at least one woman on their board, with 30% having none and 36% only one. Less than 12% have three or more women on their boards, the minimum number required to correlate with greater company performance.
"The smaller the company, the fewer women board members," Vell said. "In companies with revenues of $100 million to $500 million, women hold 216 board seats out of a total of 1880. Nearly all companies with revenues over $5 billion have at least one woman board member."
The latest Vell report looks at three key company factors: revenues, sectors and insiders. The report also looks at characteristics women directors possess that drive one or more board invites, board leadership roles and membership in the 20 largest companies.
Ultimately, the Vell report concludes the tech industry must look at the entire ecosystem—not just the largest companies—to drive greater gender balance on boards. Closing the gap, Vell said, is no longer just a matter of breaking through a glass ceiling, but opening doors for women to gain experience in smaller companies.
Vell offers strategic recommendations for overcoming the challenges and helping tech companies diversify their boards.
These include drastically extending the succession planning timeline, training high potential executives internally with governance matters, and seeding the ecosystem by assisting smaller companies to identify outstanding diverse talent.
About the author
Dora Vell is the CEO of Vell Executive Search, a boutique executive search firm in Boston focused on recruiting technology executives and board members. Vell has successfully completed numerous board member and C-level executive searches, including CEOs, COOs, CIOs, and Vice Presidents - at both public and private companies.
Prior to founding the firm in 2005, Vell was a Partner at Heidrick & Struggles' Technology practice for seven years. Before her career in executive search, she worked at IBM for 11 years, managing software engineering organizations of 100 people and software sales organizations with revenues of $150 million. She has also served as an executive assistant to the CEO of IBM Canada for one year.
Vell holds seven worldwide software patents. She has published several Business of Leadership reports on governance and leadership and has been quoted in numerous articles including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, Fortune, Agenda Week, MSNBC, Mass High Tech, the OPUS for the World Economic Forum, Boston Business Journal, The Globe & Mail, CIO Magazine, and IEEE. She also has been a featured speaker on leadership at numerous conferences and at Columbia University's MBA program.
Vell is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), the Boston CEO Roundtable. She has served on the boards of Framingham State, Entrepreneur's Organization, Goodwill, and Mary Centre for developmentally handicapped adults, garage.ca, and RBC Capital Partners.
She has received an MBA from the University of Toronto, a Master in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, and a Bachelor in Computer Science from Carleton. She has also completed the MIT Entrepreneurial Master’s program.
