Greenslade impresses me by being able to attract the people he wants for specialist positions.
All the time we are seeing very highly qualified people joining the company, and the boards being strengthened.
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Don't disagree Percy but could they do even better. Maybe opportunities are not being taken.
Even Mr Cook from Apple is not proud of his companies diversity profile. He laments leading a team of middle aged white males.
Generally being more diverse helps with being more innovative and being better positioned to better understand customer’s needs so they can be met. Above all it empowers (or forces) the company to cast wider nets for get the best talent. Diversity of thinking (whether across gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, cultures, disabilities etc) is a very powerful force.
I'll see what Jeff comes back with.
Heartland a couple of years ago had a CFO called Sean Kam
He came from Marac I think and was around when when all the mergers were taking place and was in charge of HNZ purse strings at the time of the capital raisings
He a good guy that Sean, a Chinese NZer from Auckland, and a strong advocate businesses, esp Boards and senior management, to become more culturally rich
Not only a good guy,but was brilliant at what he did.
Last I heard he was helping an insurance company that was thinking of listing.Not sure which one.
The give away that HNZ would achieve the bank licence was when he left,job done.!
Just googled Sean Kam; CFO at Partners Life.
I'd like to see them appoint the best person for the jobs. Irrespective of race, religion or gender.
I imagine they are middle-aged because they have more experience than youngsters and have not slowed down as much as more elderly people.
White? With HNZ, you have to look for those who are familiar with the NZ environment, with appropriate educational qualifications. I think more NZ Asians are appearing on boards. Do you think racism is holding people back? Then more thorough societal change is needed but in the meantime I hope HNZ is picking the best person for the job, regardless of race.
Male? Fact is fewer men have to take time out to bear children! I cannot see how this will ever change unless surrogates are used by wealthy families! There will always be potentially fewer women with uninterrupted experience at senior level.
You have to keep in mind the simple fact that there are not a lot of women who want to be a 'suit', much like you don't get a lot of men who wish to become fashion designers. It comes down to simple choice, usually influenced by our social factors in life. For instance would you expect a guy with dreadlocks to head it up?! Now that would be an un-usual occurrence!
Statistical aberration? Well, it is expected so I would call it normal!
Seriously?? I think there are plenty of women out there that would be keen. As for the "time out to bear children" bit, this argument amazes me. For a start, the number of years a women takes out of the work force these days is only 10-15% of a typical career span which is hardly a killer. Secondly, that argument incredulously presumes that women become cabbages while at home and learn nothing, whereas it is likely that by the time they have learnt to manage toddler behaviour and served on kindergarten committees that they have learned more about management, governance, self-motivation and time-management than they would have in the workforce.
Looking around my friends these days (at age 49), most of the women are now the main income earner in their family.
As an aside, I would love to see a study on the brain reactions of men when a middle-aged woman makes a point as opposed to a man or younger woman saying the same thing... I reckon the amygdala would fire up when the middle-aged woman speaks, with the man automatically reacting like a teenager being berated by his mother. :eek2:
LOL - that's the argument alpha males use since diluvial times ... the females just don't want to wear a suit! I am sure that the ISIS terrorists say as well that women always wanted to be suppressed ...
Now - I am male and worked for a long time in the industry. I have seen several examples for capable women bumping against the glass ceiling (or just accidentally not selected by white middle aged male senior managers).
I used to work as well a long time in recruitment of technical staff in New Zealand. Funny thing is, if you are in the candidate selection open related to skin colour or gender, than you can find in NZ basically throughout the year top quality graduates happy to work for you. Funny thing is - only between say June to August you find great graduates from all genders and races. The rest of the year you still can find great people, but most of them will have darker skin, Asian eyes and / or might be female - the top quality white males find their jobs already during the first application round.
But for sure - NZ does not discriminate based on race, skin colour and gender - yeah right - somebody give me a TUI, please!
Edit - let's move this debate to private chat! I feel I'm going off topic!
PGW have a Board approved Diversity Policy
http://www.pggwrightson.co.nz/Userfi...ril%202014.pdf
Can't find similar document for Heartland and a search of the last Annual Report for diverse or diversity brings nil findings
I look forward to what PGW put in their Annual Report .....and a response from Heartland seeing if they haves policy