Female representation on the board drives corporate performance.
Credit Suisse research institute found this by looking at the financial performance of almost 2400 companies from 2005 forward.
They mention that the majority of this performance gap appears from 2008 forward, without making much of a point about this. I think this is a point worth pushing. Risk propensity is one of very few behavioral differences between men and women in the work place. Men are clearly more prone to take risks than women.
Companies with females on their boards were probably more aware of the risks from 2005 to 2008. A period that we now know was a financial bubble. After all, the best crisis management is done before the bubble bursts, by cutting risks.
Some 20 years ago Sweden endured a financial crisis resembling the one that southern Europe is suffering right now. In that crisis all the Swedish banks were on the brink of insolvency, save one. Handelsbanken. That was also the only Swedish bank with a less than 100 percent male management group towards the end of the bubble.
Coincidence? I think not.