[...]... call up the reserves – to bring John Knox’s “monstrous regiment of women into the front line and the strategic discussions We cannot allow the quality of management and leadership in any walk of life to be anything other than the best possible In business, we 1 2 Women and the New Business Leadership cannot permit senior executive and director selection processes to continue to ignore half the talent... personal, leadership frame of reference In reflecting upon the potential contribution of women to the new business leadership, they have been candid about their own leadership in unprecedented times, been frank about what works and what does not, and projected their thinking forward to the strategic changes in leadership practice that will need to be made as the UK economy recovers If having the courage... University Ms Featherstone and the Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities, The Rt Hon Theresa May MP, direct the work of the Government Equalities Office (GEO), which is responsible for equalities legislation and policy in the UK and leads on the government’s international obligations to implement the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Beijing... … The UK needs to draw on the talents and experiences of women in order to successfully rebuild our economy following the recession If we were redesigning institutional leadership from the bottom up, using the findings of research into the links between gender diversity on the one hand, and corporate performance, the quality of corporate governance and the creativity of leadership teams on the other,... management and executive development Their contribution to this book has been of enormous value Just occasionally, unintended consequences turn out to be good A thought-provoking by-product of the work of researching and writing this book about women and the new business leadership has been the insight provided by the men and women named below (and by some who wished to remain anonymous) into their own,... time to read the manuscript and advise me on it, in particular in relation to corporate governance The argument is more focused as a result, and I thank them both for their guidance The then Global Chief Accountant of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Richard Keys, kindly took the time to outline the impact upon the accountancy profession of the failures of Enron and Worldcom (among others) and the increasing... after the financial and economic traumas of 2007–08 and their aftermath, wheels are in motion that will change the way the world does business Old certainties and assumptions can no longer be taken for granted The habits of mind and action that led to the crisis are being reviewed and, if necessary, they will be modified or abandoned To continue to do what we did before 2007 in the same way and to... compass, and a strong desire to debate a whole issue and to bring people into the debate These qualities are not, of course, confined to women; nor do all women possess them But hundreds of interviews with women during the course of researching and writing four books have demonstrated that many women do have them A third reason to make more space at the boardroom table for women relates to the “upside”: the. .. describe some of the qualities these women themselves believe they bring to boards, and the roles they typically play in board discussions after their appointments We turn, in Chapter 7, to the vexed question of statutory quotas We are not persuaded by the arguments for statutory minima for the number or proportion of women on company boards, but we recognize their strength, and acknowledge the progress... ethical and prudential governance, and argues that the better way to change the behavior of boards is to appoint more female directors It then calls for and prescribes action on the both the supply and demand sides of the market for female directors, summarizes recent research into the links between gender diversity on boards and corporate performance and standards of corporate governance, and proposes . by-product of the work of researching and writing this book about women and the new business leadership has been the insight provided by the men and women named. contribution of women to the new business leadership, they have been candid about their own leadership in unprecedented times, been frank about what works and what