No. of Recommendations: 4
I don't think the function of a company's board is to accurately represent the target market of its customers.
I don't think I said that, or if that was the takeaway then I said it badly. I do think a board should have a diversity of interests , and that may - and often does - come from people with different backgrounds. It's possible that the board of a women's clothing company could be all men, but generally I don't think that's a good idea, you see? But nor do I think it should necessarily be all women; the board isn't designing the clothes, obviously.
I don't care if they are all black or white, or whether they are all American or Japanese, or all over 60, and I particularly don't care whether they are men or women and what their sexual preferences are.
This is so easy to say, yet it doesn't seem to work that way - and that was the point of my original post. I was simply struck by the outsize balance of corporate boards by men, yet how easy to mouth platitudes about looking for 'men and women' without really bothering to notice how that doesn't correspond to reality.
I offer no prescription for repair, the verbiage just struck me (having taken a shallow dive on 'Boards' these past few days. FWIW I have been on the board of two non-profits, both with more than 20 members. Barely a handful had 'relevant industry experience' - because there was barely any such industries - but all brought *something* to the party.)
