Diversity on boards of directors strengthens decision-making and broadens perspectives. That’s the view of Dr Eileen Doyle, the first woman to be appointed to the board of directors of New Zealand Top 30 company Steel & Tube Holdings Limited. Lower Hutt-based Steel & Tube, New Zealand’s largest distributor of steel and allied products has been proud to publicise her appointment. Steel & Tube has 41 distribution and service centres throughout the country and approximately 800 employees. Dr Doyle is happy to be able to show that the industry is not off-limits to women. “I think it’s not so much about whether you’ve got a man or a woman as about having diversity on your board, and bringing a diverse range of viewpoints - whether it’s different genders or ethnicities,” she says.

 

Chalk one up for improved gender representation on NZX company boards. Although Steel & Tube’s headquarters is in Lower Hutt, Dr Doyle is Australian and based in Australia. Throughout much of her career Australia’s Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act has always been “been part of the background, in terms of expressing the values of the community and of corporations and it has had an impact,” she says.

 

As well as her appointment with Steel & Tube, Dr Doyle is Chairman of Port Waratah Coal Services. She agrees that heavy industries such as coal and steel are male-dominated, but says she’s never felt the odd-one out getting into the steel industry through the operational side, as a technical specialist with a maths and science background. 

 

Operational experience provided her first step into management. She says there are few female managers in the industry, and “it’s very difficult to get onto a board unless you’ve had that broad high level management experience. It is difficult to get to that level if you haven’t had operational experience.” 

 

Steel & Tube Holdings Ltd will be one of the companies that feature in the second New Zealand Census of Women’s Participation in Governance of Professional Life.  

 

EEO Commissioner Judy McGregor says the second Census will benchmark progress made by women in opening boardroom doors in the top 100 companies and Crown Entities in New Zealand since 2003. The Census Report, which is a partnership project between the New Zealand Human Rights Commission and the New Zealand Centre for Women & Leadership at Massey University, will be published early this year.