June 20, 2018
Why Women Rarely Serve on Dissident Slates
Our “Women’s 100” events are governed by the ‘Chatham House’ rule – but Aneliya Crawford of Schulte Roth gave me permission to share this nugget with you. During one of these events, Aneliya was interviewed on the topic of dealing with activists. She represents many of them – and she was asked about why so few women serve as director nominees for activists during a proxy fight.
Aneliya responded that she’s studied this question in depth – and has concluded that the answer isn’t that activists don’t want nor seek women. Rather, the qualified women that they approach only want to serve on the board if the proxy fight settles. In general, they otherwise don’t want to be on a dissident slate and have their name slung through the mud. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t want that either…
– Broc Romanek