In this episode of YS Up Governance and Boards Podcast 3YS Owls Governance Consultants, Ainslie Cunningham and Deb Anderson interview Danielle Dobson. Danielle is the founder of Code Conversations™ an author, speaker, coach, and advocate. We explore with Danielle her extensive experience in coaching and the interviews and research that led her to write her book - breaking the gender code. We discuss with Danielle the gender code in detail, together with the importance of conducting a gender pay gap audit and the positive benefits that parenting have on becoming a better leader.

" So, using that data, Bank West Curtin Centre has come up with, the latest 2020 Insights Report shows us that there's a direct causal link between having more women in senior leadership roles and key management roles, and the performance of your business. So, in terms of profitability, business performance, and productivity. And I've got the numbers here so that I'm completely accurate. So, if there's an increase of 10% or more for women in higher level management positions and boards and senior roles, the ASX listed companies, this report shows that there's a 4.9% increase in company market value. And that can equate to 78.5 million Australian dollars.

So, I mean, the numbers are in. And appointing a female CEO, there's a 12.9% increase of outperforming equivalent organisations in the sector by three or more different metrics. And I mean, I could go on. But now we can find causal links. So, this is relatively new, and it's ground-breaking and it's a world first report, because for a long time, there's been the sense, and there's been some evidence, but it hasn't been as rigorously put together and scrutinised. And using, like I mentioned, longitudinal data.
So, Julia Gillard, when she was the Prime Minister, instigated and created this measure. And so, we have years of research. So, in terms of bottom line, because we like evidence, we like data. We like to have the real numbers to help us understand the real true impact of having gender diversity, so we've got it now."
- Danielle Dobson

Summary of episode
· Code Conversations™
· Some statistics that support the value of having women in leadership roles
· Profitability, performance and productivity increase under female leadership
· Coaching women
· The positive impact of parenting on becoming a better leader with empathy, perspective, patience, prioritisation, critical thinking, flexibility, adaptability and creativity to name a few.
· Gender quotas on ASX listed boards of directors
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