AFP, Frankfurt :
Germany at the start of the year introduced a corporate “women’s quota” obliging its 100 biggest companies to fill at least 30 percent of their supervisory board seats with females.
But for many, including several of the women executives themselves, the new legislation has so far proved something of a “paper tiger”.
“The law is addressing the tip of the iceberg and we need to make sure that we change more than that,” said Belen Garijo, board member at pharmaceuticals specialist Merck KGaA.
The 55-year-old Spaniard is the first woman to hold such a position at the world’s oldest pharmaceuticals maker, based in Darmstadt.
But for her, what counts are the competence and skills required for the job rather than quotas like the one Germany introduced on January 1.
“If someone were to tell me, ‘you sit on the board because you’re a female’, that would reduce me to tears,” she said. Claudia Nemat, a board member at Deutsche Telekom, also said that such “legislation makes no real difference”.
“Companies must understand that diversity-both on the executive and supervisory boards-gives them a competitive advantage,” she said.
“We need men and women with international experience, both young and old.”
The German drugs and telecoms giants can be viewed as pioneers in a country where the glass ceiling for women is still very much a reality.
Both groups have female executive board members and more women on their supervisory boards than the 30-percent minimum required by the new law, which came at the insistence of the junior partner in the ruling coalition, the Social Democrats.
Under the law, if women cannot be found to fill 30 percent of supervisory board seats, then those seats must remain empty.
Germany at the start of the year introduced a corporate “women’s quota” obliging its 100 biggest companies to fill at least 30 percent of their supervisory board seats with females.
But for many, including several of the women executives themselves, the new legislation has so far proved something of a “paper tiger”.
“The law is addressing the tip of the iceberg and we need to make sure that we change more than that,” said Belen Garijo, board member at pharmaceuticals specialist Merck KGaA.
The 55-year-old Spaniard is the first woman to hold such a position at the world’s oldest pharmaceuticals maker, based in Darmstadt.
But for her, what counts are the competence and skills required for the job rather than quotas like the one Germany introduced on January 1.
“If someone were to tell me, ‘you sit on the board because you’re a female’, that would reduce me to tears,” she said. Claudia Nemat, a board member at Deutsche Telekom, also said that such “legislation makes no real difference”.
“Companies must understand that diversity-both on the executive and supervisory boards-gives them a competitive advantage,” she said.
“We need men and women with international experience, both young and old.”
The German drugs and telecoms giants can be viewed as pioneers in a country where the glass ceiling for women is still very much a reality.
Both groups have female executive board members and more women on their supervisory boards than the 30-percent minimum required by the new law, which came at the insistence of the junior partner in the ruling coalition, the Social Democrats.
Under the law, if women cannot be found to fill 30 percent of supervisory board seats, then those seats must remain empty.
