California Says Public Companies Have To Have Women On Board of Directors

The problem isn't really with the above - anywhere that people can get to primarily by merit, you have good results. Men may not choose nursing or education, but there's nothing really stopping them. And we're making good, natural progress with women in upper management.

But Boards of Directors are chosen by a handful of people, and often not on merit. I don't really agree with this law, but I understand the feeling of needing to force the door open for people. Black NFL head coaches and the Rooney Rule was another good example - they could get up to being assistants and such without a problem because that was largely on merit. But Head Coach was often picked by owners and on secondary factors, and so it was less merit-based and black HC candidates simply didn't even get interviewed. The Rooney Rule forced the issue and, despite not forcing people to hire anyone, resulted in people getting opportunities they deserved. I think something like that would be more workable than this law, if government feels the need to be involved.

 

Meanwhile Nepotism, Frat Bros and 'We went to the same school' ism runs rampent
None of them seem so 'insulted' because they got the job for no other reason that . . HEY I KNOW YOU!
The idea that everyone in those board rooms 'EARNED IT" and
"WORKED HARD FOR IT" and "GOT NO HELP" is fricking

For years and Decades and CENTURIES .. . . .folx been getting jobs they didn't really 'earn'
and they were so insulted that they took them and held them and tried to pass it on to their sons . .. . OH THE INSULT

Rocket River

 

The idea is right but the details likely needs more work. Still its a start even if an imperfect one.

 

Well duh, men won't do it to other men you idiot. But women don't get that luxury. That's why I said I bet most women would prefer the credentials to back them up because they know it's coming. And just because the unjust coming judgement is wrong doesn't mean it isn't going to happen. Women live in the real world not fantasy land.

 

The end goal is that there will be a zero tolerance for sexual assault in corporate America. After due process, offenders need to be publicly fired. The message will then be sent loud and clear that sexual assault has serious, life changing consequences.

 

This has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

 

Your right, it doesn't.

 

And CML never came back to answer the question....figures.

 

Let's ask Wendy Graham about that?

Wendy graham is the wife of Phil Graham and was on the Enron board.

 

Ah, forced diversity, so much better than meritocracy in that you get to virtue signal instead of hire the best and brightest.

 

A board of directors represents shareholders and establish protocol/mandates and decisions for major corporate issues.

Also, a CEO must answer to the board of directors.

 

Yes, but they appoint the leadership and the leadership is accountable to the board of directors. Not to mention that they establish protocol.

 

Typical dishonesty - board of directors are not appointed on pure merit, so bringing up meritocracy in this case is highly disingenuous.

 

I will never forget my dad several years ago talking about the hiring process in the DPS.

Had two candidates make it through the hiring process(one of which was much more qualified than the other by leaps and bounds).

One guy was a former West Point graduate, military, great demeanor for the job, etc.

Other gentleman was of minority ethnicity, graduated with a lower GPA out of a small college

My dad's supervisor informed him they needed to hire the guy with the ethnic background due to the diversity policy.

Lesser candidate got the job, and was later fired 6 months later for drinking on the job.

Controlling private businesses on who they can and can't hire is not right.

If the woman is best for the job she deserves it no doubt about it, but this is pretty insulting.

 

At first I was annoyed by this. This is certainly the government overstepping their bounds.

Then I thought about it and figured out I just don't care. There should be enough qualified women out there to fill in the needs where there are not enough on boards of publicly traded companies.

Additionally, if a a company really feared that this would negatively affect their business for some reason, they are perfectly within their right to move the company out of California. The market will correct if this is an issue.

Sure...some wealthy and possibly more qualified guy MIGHT get bumped for a wealthy slightly less qualified woman in some case, but all told...I just don't care.

This does remind me of when I worked for a mega large Oil and Gas company that had a D&I policy for women leaders. The issue: 95% of the leadership comes out of engineering and petro-technical background. Oh, by the way, 95% of the engineering and petro-tech workers are male.

Solution: Over load the Finance, IT, Supply Chain, HR, and business functions leadership with women to offset the almost impossible task of filling in a bunch of petro tech leadership jobs with women.

Boards of big companies, it doesn't matter as much. You may say: tech companies have a lot of men, so its hard to get women leadership. But at the board level, its almost all about corporate governance. Subject matter expertise is nice, but not especially needed.

 

Unfortunately real life doesnt work like that - the higher up the corporate ladder the position is, the less relevant merit and ability become to personal relationships, background and network.

Yes there are extreme cases like you described and an unqualified person should never be given a position under the guise of diversity. But in my experience, there are often candidates that may not be the best but are more than qualified to do justice the job while checking the diversity box along the way, but wouldnt get the opportunity cos they dont fit the desired mold of the hiring team.

Rules like this aim to address issues such as this, which will not autocorrect themselves. While the rules may be imperfect and often require further tweaking to get the right balance, they are often the only viable way to address these issues.

A relevant example is the rooney rule in the NFL.