Women on Boards

Key to success is the open invitation – WOB is inclusive and welcoming. The team supports all women on their board and leadership journey and celebrates their success.

Since 2006, WOB has worked hard to improve gender balance on boards and in leadership roles across Australasia, with some degree of success.

Since inception, WOB’s vision has been to increase the number of women on boards and in leadership roles to achieve a gender balance of 40:40:20 – 40 per cent women, 40 per cent men and 20 per cent of either, or other genders. The group welcomes the fact that many other advocacy groups have since adopted its founding vision.

It advocates for cultural diversity on boards and seeks to raise awareness and create opportunities for culturally diverse women to connect, network and interact with decision-makers.

WOB aggregates diversity statistics. The group’s gender balance on board series records the progress of women onto boards across 15 sectors of the economy since 2010.

The idea to create a Women on Boards movement gained traction after the success of female athletes in the 2000 Olympic Games. It was originally auspiced by the National Foundation for Australian Women, before being officially founded by Claire Braund and Ruth Medd in 2006, with a simple objective of getting women onto boards. WOB was then launched in the UK in 2012.

Membership of WOB is open to all. It is free to register as a basic member, with a fee to join as a full member. It is possible to join in both the UK and Australia under a premium membership.

Advantages of membership include:

• Access to full details of all board and committee positions on the vacancy board.
• Support when applying for board roles.
• Access to WOBShare, a member-only online community.
• Up to 30 per cent discount on WOB events and workshops.
• Access to free member-only events, such as WOBChat.
• Information and resources to assist and motivate members.
Corporate members

WOB has the following corporate members in 2021:

• AON
• BDO Australia
• Clayton Utz
• Computershare
• CPA Australia
• GrainCorp
• Grant Thornton
• Holding Redlich
• McGrathNicol

WOB has partnerships with Governance Institute of Australia, Social Index and the Governance Evaluator.

WOB arranges a series of events under two banners:

• Become board ready
• Build boardroom capability

• Ruth Medd, executive chair
• Claire Braund, executive director
• Mary Sue Rogers, nonexecutive director
• Carmel Macmillan, nonexecutive director

Claire Braund and Ruth Medd, Women on Boards.