Tech CEOs: Gender Diversity Not Top Priority

04 Mar Tech CEOs: Gender Diversity Not Top Priority

More than 60% of tech CEOs don’t think gender diversity is very important when it comes to filling their board positions, according to a new survey from Qualtrics and the Boardlist, a curated marketplace for potential female board members.

The Boardlist, which officially launched out of beta in Europe last month, sent tech CEOs and founders who are backed by over 30 venture capital firms a survey on how they fill their boards. Thirty-eight percent did indicate that gender diversity is very important, but another 38% rated it “less important” and the remainder fell somewhere in between.

That’s not to say they don’t value gender diversity. Three-quarters said that it can lead to enhanced board effectiveness, and 65% said it can enhance company performance. But other forms of diversity, such as diversity of opinion and thought, were rated more important, survey participants said. Nearly 70% said that adding a specific expertise to the board was either extremely or very important.

Finding both qualified female candidates and those with specific expertise isn’t a mutually exclusive task, of course. But these tech CEOs also echoed a past complaint — that it is hard to find women for the job. Eighty percent said there are a sufficient number of qualified male candidates for their board, while only 50% said there were enough women.

From the surveyed group, 73% said finding female candidates with the right experience was a major barrier to adding gender diversity to their board; 79% said the time it takes to source a gender diverse slate of candidates was a major issue; and 65% said finding female candidates that fit their board’s “culture” was a challenge.

The Boardlist is hoping to use data from the survey results to refine how it presents its female candidates based on what matters to tech companies. Its ultimate goal is to increase diversity at the executive level of technology companies to rectify the fact that, it estimates, 75% to 78% of privately funded company boards do not have a female director.

The Boardlist at launch includes more than 1,000 highly qualified women with endorsements from over 200 CEOs, business leaders and investors across industries. It says it currently has 40 searches in progress.

SOURCE