Patience Wheatcroft | When Women's Credentials Equal Men's, They Will Rise As Leaders

RedTracker| Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Patience Wheatcroft takes a predictably negative view of concerns that women aren’t sufficiently represented in global boardrooms and CEO positions, stressing that the most important criteria should be hiring the best person for the job and that women were ‘late starters’ in the runup to building a portfolio of qualifications to serve on boards of directors or CEO positions.

Responding the reports that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has backed the notion of affirmative action in British board rooms if progress isn’t made quickly, Wheatcroft writes the predicatable:

Companies should not be bounced into thinking that they must recruit a quota of females. That would do a disservice to their shareholders and to women who are happy to make their own way in world. The German government is led by a woman, the U.S. secretary of state is a woman as is the French finance minister. None of those appointments is deemed remarkable for these are capable, qualified people well suited to the roles. Business needs to be allowed to advance people on the same basis.

The assertion by Wheatcroft that global companies are well run by men should be challenged.

We exist in a global financial meltdown and the general consensus is that in the last decade, little real wealth has been created by business. What are her benchmarks for this implied reality that men are doing such a great job in business and the mandated insertion of women will somehow undermine the global economy? We’re confused. Read on: Addressing perceived discrimination via WSJ