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Letter to the editor

Boards slowly diversifying

Adding different voices and viewpoints can help a company's business, says a woman who serves on several boards. But companies need to open up their recruiting searches, she adds.

By HELEN HUNTLEY
Published October 28, 2007

The company cited her experience as former senior vice president of human resources and workplace management for Avon Products. That fits well with one of First Advantage's businesses, selling employee screening and other HR services to companies.

But Kanin-Lovers, 55, also is one of a rare breed, a woman serving on multiple public company boards. In addition to First Advantage, she's on the boards of the consulting firm BearingPoint and the search firm Heidrick & Struggles as well as the privately-held Dot Foods, a food distributor. A Wharton MBA, she previously served on the board of the drug company Alpharma.

Kanin-Lovers, who lives in Stamford, Conn., is enthused about the contributions that women and minorities can make to corporate boards.

Here is an edited version of a recent conversation with the Times:

What do women and minorities bring to a board?

Everybody brings something different. We're not all the same even if we're the same race or gender. Companies need to think about how it can help their business. A consumer products company, if they're trying to sell to women, why wouldn't they want a woman on their board? A company like First Advantage, if they're trying to sell to senior human resource officers, should have a woman on the board who understands that perspective. It helps to have a woman sitting on the board when you're trying to hire executive women. The same thing with people of color. They're an economic force and they bring a different set of networks to the business.

Why has progress been so slow in bringing women and minorities on boards?

The recruiting process hasn't been as open as it should be. There's a tendency to bring in people who have had very senior positions and who are on other boards. It's hard to get on that first board. When they first start to look for board members, many companies want to get an active CEO. You wind up with a pretty small sample. If you only look at the most senior executive, the CEO, you're going to miss out.

Where should companies be looking to find more women and minority board members?

Folks who are recently out of corporate positions could be attractive as well as those who are in senior executive positions. There are some areas where there tend to be more women, such as senior marketing officer positions. It is more challenging to find people of color, but if you're dealing in a global economy and you want to have global representation on your board, you really need to go after it. You need to look at your board broadly in terms of skills you'd like to have. Do a search through your board members and through a search firm. Tell whoever is working with you that you want to interview diverse candidates.

Board women deliver

Want to fill your company's coffers? Put a woman on your board of directors. Want to make more money? Add several. A study released this month by Catalyst found that Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of female directors performed the best financially, especially those with three or more. Catalyst, which studies women and business, discovered:

-Return on equity: On average, companies with the highest percentages of female directors outperformed those with the least by 53 percent.

-Return on sales: On average, companies with the highest percentages bested those with the least by 42 percent.

-Return on invested capital: On average, companies with the highest percentagestopped those with the least by 66 percent.

The top quartile for percentage of female directors includes Albertsons, Bank of America Corp., Progress Energy and Walt Disney Co. The bottom quartile includes CSX Corp., FPL Group Inc., Honeywell International Inc., Jabil Circuit Inc., L-3 Communications Holdings Corp. and Lennar Corp.

-- Christina Rexrode, Times staff writer

[Last modified October 25, 2007, 14:08:45]