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The best female chief financial officers out there are rightly sought after within the JSE Top 40’s C-suite. They are too skilled, senior, experienced, and innovative to compromise on work-life balance, which means that those hiring them need to relook their in-house modus operandi.
By Jeremy Bossenger of BossJansen Executive Search
A recent paper on CFO CA (SA)s at JSE Top 40 companies brings to light interesting statistics when making an international comparison about the role.
Firstly, only 7.5 percent of JSE Top 40 CFOs are women, versus the 11 percent of ASX 100 companies and FTSE 100 companies, and the 13 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Our CFOs also tend to have a shorter tenure on average (just 4.1 years), versus the tenures of the FTSE 100 (4.5 years), the ASX 100 (5 years), and the Fortune 500 (5.6 years). Another key piece of data is that South African CFOs tend to be younger than their international counterparts – i.e. 49 years in SA, versus the ASX 100’s 51 years, and FTSE 100/Fortune 500’s 52 years.
Further, the above paper also reports a conspicuous lack of diversity among JSE Top 40 CFOs, with only 9 (22.5 percent) of Top 40 CFOs hailing from a broad-based black ethnicity group; and only 3 (7.5 percent) of 40 current CFOs being female.
Diversity under the spotlight
When a data set like this hits you squarely in the jaw, it’s important to find reasons for the imbalance and to make suggestions that can be applied to rectify the situation. This has become increasingly important in light of the need for companies listed on international exchanges to require a minimum of two non-white or female board members; or having to publicise the reasons why this is not the case. While the gender split of annual graduates intake at global listed firms is around 52 percent women, 48 percent men – the disparity in genders becomes increasingly apparent from age 30 onwards.
Research reveals that the more diverse a company, the higher its levels of innovation – with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) leading to increased connection between people and brands; better outcomes and broader customer bases; enhanced creativity and awareness; more unique viewpoints and a diversity of thinking (to accommodate diversity within a market); and an altogether more honest sounding board – resulting in best-in-class change where it is vital in a sector.
Further, women who are hired into the CFO role seem to offer many positive spin-offs for the firms at which they are based. These firms are more profitable –generating US$1.87-trillion more than the sector average; and, when companies have, on average, more than 30 percent female executives, they generally outperform those with a lesser percentage.
“No matter how you look at it,” reveals Hanady Khalife, Senior Director, Middle East, Africa and India, for the Institute of Management Accountants, “women leaders are good for business in general.” And also for building “more sustainable, self-sufficient, and increasingly shockproof” organisations in the future, she adds.
