Directors

Each year, corporations registered under the CATSI Act are required to provide details of directors in their general reports, including their age, name and title—for instance Dr, Mr, Mrs or Ms. This report has relied on directors’ titles and first names, as reported in general reports, to identify gender.

Table 5: Average number of directors per board, in the top 500 corporations, 2011–12 to 2015–16

At the time of reporting, one corporation in the top 500 was under special administration. In most cases when a special administrator is appointed, all director positions are vacated and the special administrator performs the role of the board. One corporation was therefore excluded from the data to determine the average number of directors per
board.

In 2015–16 a total of 4114 people filled directors’ roles in the top 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations. This represents an average of 8.2 directors per corporation. Over the last five years, the average number of directors per corporation has ranged from 7.8 to 8.2 (table 5).

The smallest individual board had three directors and the largest had 48 directors. A greater number of corporations (318) had fewer directors than the average while 182 had a number above the average.

Gender diversity of directors

Figure 23: Gender of directors for the top 500 corporations, 2015–16

The gender of 55 directors (1.3 per cent) could not be identified as some corporations did not indicate gender-specific titles (Mr, Mrs, Ms) and the first names of their directors were also gender-neutral (figure 23).

Excluding directors whose gender was not specified, the breakdown of male and female directorships was 48.4 per cent male to 51.6 per cent female. This is a small shift from the previous financial year when there were 47.2 per cent male directors to 52.8 per cent female directors. There were 19 all-male boards and 38 all-female boards.

Strong female representation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporation boards is not new. Since the Registrar began to document the gender split through the top 500 reports, women have always been in the majority on boards. However, the representation of females has declined slightly over the years (54.4 per cent in 2012–13; 53.8 per cent in 2013–14; 52.8 per cent in 2014–15; and 51.6 per cent in 2015–16).

Figure 24: Representation of women on boards—some comparisons[1]

Figure 24 shows that female representation on boards of the top 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations (52.8 per cent) remains considerably higher than for companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (25.4 per cent).

The ‘30% Club’ was launched as a campaign in the UK in 2010 with a goal of achieving a minimum of 30 per cent women on FTSE-100 boards. The 30% Club Australia chapter launched in May 2015 with the primary objective of campaigning for 30 per cent women on ASX 200 boards by the end 2018. The current number of ASX 200 companies with at least 30 per cent female directors is 66 (33 per cent of the ASX 200).[2] The current number of top 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations with at least 30 per cent female directors is 400 (80 per cent of the top 500).

Notes

1. Sources: Australian Institute of Company Directors 2017, Appointments to ASX 200 Boards, Statistics (31 August 2017), Australian Institute of Company Directors, viewed 18 October 2017; Commonwealth of Australia, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Gender Balance on Australian Government Boards Report 2015–16, September 2016, p. 2; Women on Boards, Boardroom diversity index, viewed 18 October 2017. The data shown ‘Charities in NSW’ is taken from the index for 2015. The index describes it as data detailing a random sample of 600 NSW-based charities.
2. Australian Institute of Company Directors 2017, 30% by 2018: Gender diversity progress report, June – August 2017 quarterly report volume 9, p. 4.