The National: The many benefits of more women on boards

In an opinion piece written for The National, as the UAE regulator set a quota of one woman per listed company board, Aurora50 co-founder Diana Wilde says that diverse boardrooms are both fairer and more profitable.

In the UAE, writes Ms Wilde, we are seeing women taking their position in the ‘C-suite’ as the pipeline of female talent develops. In January 2021, Hana Al Rostamani – a former independent board director of Du and board member at family business AW Rostamani Group – was named the first-ever female CEO of First Abu Dhabi Bank. While she cannot sit on the board of FAB while she runs the company, she will be a great candidate for a board in the future.

Investors, she adds, look closely at female representation at the C-suite and board level. Goldman Sachs, for instance, will not underwrite American or European stock market launches of private companies unless they have at least two diverse board members.

Gender parity is worth $101 billion to the UAE economy, while US think tank the Council on Foreign Relations calculates that if women’s working participation were to become fully equal to that of men, the gross domestic product of the UAE would grow by 16 per cent in four years.

Read Diana Wilde’s full opinion piece on women and boards in The National