ABSTRACT

Women’s representation on the Boards of Directors of public companies is growing in the world, and today it averages 12%. In Russia this figure is twice as low – women hold only 5.7% of corporate board seats (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 2015). None of the chairpersons of Russian corporate boards is a woman. At the same time, the role of women as members and chairpersons of audit committees is becoming more prominent. Women are holding positions of corporate secretaries.

While more and more women head large Russian businesses, they are still considered very effective middle managers rather than good top managers. Many women hold positions of finance director or chief accountant. But in general, according to the studies of the gender representation in corporate governance, Russia is far away from such developed countries as Norway, France, Sweden and Italy. At the same time the proportion of women in Russian executive and especially legislative bodies is quite visible.

This chapter focuses on the results of the few studies on the role of women in corporate governance. Special emphasis will be put on functioning women as members of the boards of directors of Russian companies with state participation as well as on personal experience of one of the authors serving as non-executive director. This chapter aims at analyzing economic and financial performance of companies with women on their corporate boards, examining whether the women’s representation on the corporate board contributes to company’s growth and development, or whether it is just a tribute to the ‘breaking the glass ceiling’ trend.