Monthly Archives: December 2019

Up-and-Coming Women in PE to Know: Kim Hruby

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November 19, 2019

The interview below is part of a yearlong effort by McGuireWoods to profile up-and-coming women leaders in private equity (PE). This profile series complements our existing Women Leaders in Private Equity profile series, which will continue throughout 2019. To recommend a rising star for a future interview, email Amber Walsh at [email protected].

Hruby joined Council Capital in 2016 to lead the outbound marketing efforts. A top development leader in the healthcare sector, she successfully uses her 25-plus years of experience to educate business owners regarding PE and how their ultimate vision can be achieved. Hruby focuses on building executive-level relationships and a network that results in identifying partnerships that support the firm’s mission to invest in companies on the right side of healthcare change.

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THE CURRENT STATE OF WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

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Women are not a common sight in most executive suites. The number of females in C-level positions is surprisingly low.

The problem is compounded by the fact that women rarely hold the roles that lead to the executive suite – even though research has shown that when women participate in leadership, companies tend to have better performance and return on investment.

Yet, there are very few women in management roles, and the number of female managers decreases the further up the hierarchy you go.

The Current State of Women in Leadership Roles

While women occupy 60% of junior positions, they are sorely underrepresented as you move up the corporate hierarchy. Only 50% of middle management and just 20% of senior management are female. In the C-suite, women have roughly 10% of the roles there and the percentage of females in executive roles is even lower. According to Pew Research, only 5.1% of executives at S&P 1500 companies are female – and that isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

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“Invisible Women” wins the 2019 Business Book of the Year Award

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December 4, 2019The winner of the 2019 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award is an investigation into how a gender gap in data perpetuates disadvantages for women across the world. Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by journalist and activist Caroline Criado Perez, delves into the ways data collection systematically ignores half the world’s population.

McKinsey global managing partner Kevin Sneader and Financial Times editor Lionel Barber presented the award on Tuesday, December 3, at the Park Hyatt Hotel in New York. Verizon CEO Ronan Dunne sat down with Barber for the event’s keynote interview.

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Invisible Women – a world designed for men

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by Caroline Criado Perez

From the ‘one-size-fits-men’ approach to smartphone design to the medical trials that are putting women’s lives at risk … this book uses data like a laser.

The problem with feminism is that it’s just too familiar. The attention of a jaded public and neophiliac media may have been aroused by #MeToo, with its connotations of youth, sex and celebrity, but for the most part it has drifted recently towards other forms of prejudice, such as transphobia. Unfortunately for women, though, the hoary old problems of discrimination, violence and unpaid labour are still very much with us. We mistake our fatigue about feminism for the exhaustion of patriarchy. A recent large survey revealed that more than two thirds of men in Britain believe that women now enjoy equal opportunities. When the writer and activist Caroline Criado Perez campaigned to have a female historical figure on the back of sterling banknotes, one man responded: “But women are everywhere now!”

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Not walking the talk of gender diversity

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INSEAD research finds investors are not walking the talk of gender diversity

Middle East, Asia, Europe
29 November 2019

In recent years investors have become vocal advocates for gender-diverse boards. But how committed are they?

New INSEAD research suggests that despite proclamations of support, investors perceive companies which increase female representation on their board as having a weaker commitment to shareholder value and are likely to punish them accordingly.

Specifically, it found that:

  • Among the firms that had made other investments in gender diversity, the appointment of female directors to the board reduced the firm’s market value relative to the value of the company’s physical assets by almost 6 percent.
  • The market penalty is unrelated to actual board performance
  • The effect dissipates after two years

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Why Investors React Negatively to Companies with Women on Boards

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Despite persistent efforts to tackle underrepresentation of women on corporate boards, most boardrooms remain mostly male. The slow progress on gender diversity has frustrated policymakers, industry groups, and institutional investors, many of whom have publicly advocated for inclusion of women and minorities among the top ranks of management.

But are investors walking the walk on board diversity?

In a recent study, we examine board composition and financial data on 1,644 public companies in the U.S. between 1998 and 2011, controlling for numerous firm-specific characteristics like size and corporate governance structure. We find that companies that appoint women to the board see a decline in their market value for two years following the appointment (after which we no longer see any effect). In other words, investors seem to be penalizing, rather than rewarding, companies that strive to be more inclusive.

Why might the stock market react negatively to increases in board diversity?

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