Catalyst’s Gillis: Canada Boards Still Need More Women

Jul 19, 2013 9:21 am ET

By Caroline Van Hasselt

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Women hold only 14.5% of corporate board seats in Canada, and almost half of the country’s publicly traded companies have no female representation on their boards at all, according to Catalyst Inc., which promotes women in the workplace.

In the C-Suite, women hold just 18.1% of the senior officer positions in the country’s top 500 companies and only 27 companies have women who are chief executive officers.

“It’s just such a disconnect from the role, the education and importance of Canadian women, both as part of the labor market but also as influential business owners, consumers and shareholders. It’s really quite surprising,” said Deborah Gillis, the chief operating officer of Catalyst in Toronto, in a recent interview with Canada Real Time.

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