The document discusses Hightech Partners' experience recruiting women for non-executive board positions. It finds that the pool of experienced women candidates is limited, especially in technology sectors. It also notes that while women have the skills for board roles, taking the first position is challenging and they often wait until retirement. The document also mentions that legislation in some countries now requires quotas for women on boards, which could lead to underqualified candidates being chosen to meet quotas.

1. Hightech Partners ITP
Recruitment of Women to Board positions
Among the growing concerns of our
clients has been diversity and parity • Quality:
at senior levels of management. This Our clients are interested in Board members who can
has been fostered by pressure from be instrumental in the development of the business,
organizations themselves and from complement skills of the management team, be
legislators in several countries. At capable of taking the helicopter view of managing a
Hightech Partners we have seen business in a quickly changing economical environment
these concerns emerge in the with even faster evolving technologies, and last but not
technology sector across Europe. least open doors and share relationships. On one hand,
the corporate tradition to seek mainly CEOs or former
We thought it would be useful to CEOs seems to be losing ground to the benefit of
summarise our experience based on valuing functional expertise. In this respect, this is good
work performed for our Clients, news for women candidates who are most often found
involving the recruitment of in the areas of Finance, Marketing, HR, and Legal. On
non-Executive Board member(s), the other hand, this also means that to keep up with fast
particularly women. Here are some evolving technology (most often the core business of
observations and reflections on our our clients), the individual is preferably still active as a
work: senior executive or in specialized associations or
groups. We also found it challenging to find candidates
• Limited pool of candidates: with the international breadth needed to deal with the
It is no surprise that the pool of experienced women global business concerns of our client.
candidates is limited. We know that to be true of senior
positions, generally speaking but, this is even more so • “Hot topic”:
for non-executive Board positions. We also know that The topic is a “hot” one in Europe and particularly in
while this is the case in all sectors, it is even more so in France right now and stirred much discussion with
high technology. The women candidates we did find women candidates we contacted. Several women’s
seemed to be more in the Telecommunications and groups have now put the topic of women on Boards on
Media sectors. Candidates in the IT sector were scarce. their agenda to encourage women to prepare
Statistics by GMI, a global governance ratings agency, themselves to take on such positions; this agenda is
show that about 6% percent of board members in pushed by much controversy on upcoming quotas. In
technology companies are women. By comparison, it is Fortune 500 board rooms, 15 percent of members are
13% in retail companies. We can all find the usual women. According to GMI, the average in Europe is
“suspects”, the more famous women who already sit on around 9%, in Asia, about 4%. France is currently
boards. But typically the number of Boards any given passing a legislation which will impose a 20% quota by
Director can sit on is limited to 4 or 5. The challenge for the year 2013 and a 40% quota in public companies by
our firm was to go beyond the obvious ones and find the the year 2016. This is just one example among several
right candidates for our client already passed in other countries. In face of this

2. legislation, the risk for companies is to be pushed into
naming women on their Boards who, because of the
size of the pool of qualified candidates, would not have
the level or skills required to hold such key roles. This
would be reducing the roles of women on Boards to
tokenism and have a negative impact on the efficiency
of the board. This is where we help.
• A lot of potential and skills for the future but For further information on this and related topics please
taking on the first role is a challenge: contact us either via out website,
The good news is that we found seasoned senior www.hightechpartners.com, or call us on
executives out there who are not only interested in +33609909248
taking on non-Executive positions but who have the
skills to do so. Our finding was that qualified women
often tended to wait until they retired or were in
Copyright Hightech Partners ITP 2010
semi-retirement to take on such positions, with the
thought that this would give them the time they needed
to invest in the role. Given the above, this is one of the
challenges for companies looking to add women on
Boards, both in quality and in the quantity of potential
candidates. Women also have trouble identifying how to
make that first step and take on that very first role which
will then facilitate taking on additional roles. This is
where women’s groups will play an important role. We
believe that we at Hightech Partners can, as well.
Many studies show why Boards should include women,
it is needless to add more. From a practical perspective,
Hightech Partners has been and continues to identify
excellent immediate candidates for Board positions
including women who are currently experienced and
who are very ready to bring a real added value to Board
rooms. As we want to be one step ahead, we are also
identifying the rising stars that will be ready to take on
such roles in the next 2 to 3 years.