Compliance and Compromise: Women’s Role on Boards of Family Firms
Featuring Kavil Ramachandran
Gender diversity is a global priority. Why, then, do so few women make it to the boardroom?
March 09, 2025
Display Settings
Display mode
Text size
Listen to this article
Kavil Ramachandran
Professor of Entrepreneurship (Practice) and Senior Advisor at ISB’s Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise (ThS_CFE). He focuses on family business, entrepreneurship, and strategy. His expertise lies in governance, professionalisation, and strategic challenges faced by fast-growing, multi-generational family firms.
Key Takeaways
- Family firms are more likely than non-family firms to comply with the regulatory mandate of appointing a woman director.
- Compliance often results in the appointment of a woman from within the family as an executive director, rather than an independent director.
- Larger family business groups are more likely to appoint independent women directors, while smaller family firms tend to rely on women from within the family.