Why diversity and inclusion matter to life sciences boards
If you could add board members who could help you improve the lives of patients, would you appoint them?
Life sciences companies are all striving to improve health and save lives through new medicines, devices, or therapies. Fulfilling this mission in a deeply complex industry requires the very best that organizations can achieve. The good news is that years of research has shown a clear way to improve performance: increase diversity and inclusion. Diverse and inclusive teams consistently outperform more homogenous ones, because they are more engaged, think more carefully about problems and decisions, and incorporate new perspectives—creating room for innovative breakthroughs.
Diversity and inclusion is good for business, too: recent research found that companies with just one woman on the board had higher return on equity and higher net income growth than those with none. When the proportion of women reaches the threshold 30% of board members, net margins may be boosted by as much as 6 percentage points.
Sadly, at a time when innovative problem-solving and effective decision-making are more important than ever, many life sciences companies seem to be choosing status quo: women represent just over 10% of life sciences board members, with small variations among sectors. Smaller and newer companies tend to have even lower board diversity than their larger peers, putting them at a disadvantage from the start.
The question is not whether you should seek to add women to your board, it is whether you can afford not to. For progressive companies ready to accelerate past their peers, to really make a difference in people’s lives, we deliver board diversity that works.