Women in Governance Awards

E aku rangatira, tēnā koutou katoa. Ka nui te honore ki te mihi ki a koutou.

Good evening everyone.  Thank you for your kind words of welcome Brigid.  Thanks also to Women on Boards New Zealand for inviting me to launch the inaugural Women in Governance Awards this evening.  I particularly thank Lesley Whyte and Dr Rosanne Hawarden, co-founders of Women on Boards New Zealand, and NEXT magazine for hosting this wonderful event.

I acknowledge here tonight Dr Jackie Blue, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner; Traci Houpapa, Chair of the National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women; and Penny Hulse, Deputy Mayor, Auckland Council.

I would also like to acknowledge my Parliamentary colleagues who are here tonight – Sue Moroney, Tracey Martin, Metiria Turei and Louisa Wall.

Finally, I welcome all the Award nominees and finalists, supporting organisations and guests here tonight. It is a pleasure to be here with you.

Women in leadership and governance

One of my key priorities as Minister of Women’s Affairs is to have more New Zealand women in leadership and governance.

Research shows that women bring to the table more diverse views, innovative ideas, attention to details, and are better able to link to diverse customers, investors and stakeholders.  Diverse views enable richer discussions, better strategic thinking and ultimately better results for the organisation’s bottom lines.

When reflecting on how to promote more women up through the pipeline of middle and senior management and also into governance roles it’s useful to reflect on some of the reasons given by those who profess to support this as to why it isn’t happening or cannot.  For example “the same small number of women with the requisite skills keep coming up or are already too busy.”  Or “there are no women with the requisite skills and if there are then when they’re offered the roles they decline.”  Or “women don’t apply for these jobs or appointments”.

I hope by now most of you are ready to protest, and loudly.  We know that isn’t a correct representation of the facts.

So for now those of us who believe strongly, determinedly, that there are plenty of women that deserve these roles and plenty of roles that deserve these women.  We have to work pretty hard to make it happen.  Look for every angle to approach the challenge, recruit champions from every corner, bolster self-belief among those who doubt but have the qualifications.

The Ministry are keen to recruit women with experience or skills in commerce, change management, social media, valuation, sciences, engineering or information and communication technology.  Our database needs your CVs.  

If this sounds like you, we need you. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs website has all the information if you are interested in finding out more.

There is a lot happening in this space right now, for example:

• the Institute of Directors’ Mentoring for Diversity Programme;
• the 25 Percent Group with its target of 25 per cent of women on boards by 2015;
• the 25 Percent Group’s Voluntary Code of Practice for Board Recruitment;
• the NZX diversity listing rule and associated guidance;
• the UN’s Women’s Empowerment Principles programme, which now has 25 participating companies and organisations in New Zealand;
• many other organisations such as Global Women, Women In Leadership Aotearoa, Professionelle, Diversity NZ Inc, and the Women Presidents’ Organization which will formally launch its New Zealand chapter tomorrow;
• and of course our hosts tonight, Women on Boards NZ, which now has four branches in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Hamilton.

These are some examples but happily there are more.

Women’s participation on private sector boards has increased significantly in recent years and in 2012 was 14.75 per cent, up from 9.3 per cent in 2010.  More work still needs to be done to continue highlighting the benefits of more women in leadership and to address the leaking pipeline of women into leadership and governance roles.

I would like to encourage you to keep the discussions flowing in all the sectors you work in and at all levels within organisations.  This will continue to raise awareness and continue the momentum for change.

The awards

Tonight’s inaugural Women in Governance Awards enable us all to recognise and celebrate the achievements of organisations and individuals.

Organisations need the talent, experiences and skills of individuals in order to excel, innovate, and deliver high performance and achieve success.

These organisations recognise the need to leverage the talent of their female workforce and are implementing initiatives to ensure they are attracting and retaining their top talent.

With the backing of a supportive organisation, women in those organisations have the opportunity to flourish, fully utilise their talents and to maximise their performance.

Tonight, we acknowledge the efforts of some of those organisations that have made efforts to ensure a gender balanced executive team and gender balanced board. We also acknowledge the achievements and contributions of some very special women.

One particular woman will be recognised tonight for her lifetime contribution to excellence in governance and the advancement and promotion of gender diversity, either at the senior management or board level.

Congratulations to all the award winners for your achievements and contribution to the advancement of leadership and governance for women in New Zealand.

Your vision, leadership and courage are especially noted in this year being the 120th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand. At that time, it was women and men who fought for change in our society. It was hard fought and like today, it took the actions of many to make changes in our society.

Conclusion

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this evening.  I know everyone will draw inspiration from the efforts and achievements of the award winners. 

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.