Helping More Women Sit on Public and Private Boards in Hawai‘i

The latest figures from the 50/50 women on boards Gender Diversity Index show that women comprise only 29% of board seats on companies in the Russell 3000 index, which represents 97% of the public equity market.

The percentage of women on corporate boards continues to increase, but the rate of growth has slowed in recent years, says Jennifer Reynolds, CEO of the global nonprofit Women Corporate Directors. “As much as we’ve been talking about this for decades, we have to continue talking about it because we’re not where we should be,” she says.

WCD is the world’s largest network of female corporate board directors, with more than 2,500 members serving on more than 8,500 public and private boards around the globe. Its Hawai‘i chapter was launched 10 years ago to help support local women who serve on corporate boards and those who are strong candidates for board membership.

Barbara Tanabe, who has served on the boards of many organizations, including Bank of Hawai‘i and the East-West Center, was the key driver in the founding of the local chapter. She emphasizes that placing women on boards requires a group effort, and not just from women.

Communications executive Barbara Tanabe founded the Hawai’i chapter of WCD, and has helped get men involved in advocating for female representation on local boards. | Photo: Dana Edmunds

“We can’t be the sole voice. We need everyone to participate,” Tanabe says. Part of that is inviting male speakers – who can help spread the word about local candidates – to WCD Hawaii events.

“When they see the level of experience and achievements of the participants, most of them are quite impressed,” she says. “They realize that there is a cadre of groups in Hawai‘i with the experience, knowledge and desire to fulfill directorships on various boards.”

Enriched Conversations

Chapter meeting topics have evolved over the years, says Catherine Ngo, chair of Central Pacific Financial Corp., the parent of Central Pacific Bank. Ngo noted that earlier topics centered on board governance-related topics, such as the importance of board member independence and compensation committee responsibilities. Now they have broadened into discussions about hot topics such as artificial intelligence and cybercrime.

Ngo joined the chapter in 2015. As Central Pacific Bank’s new CEO and a member of a public company board, she was looking for mentorship and support from other women who had reached the top of their careers, as well as camaraderie. Now a member of the chapter’s executive committee, she credits Tanabe as a trailblazer.

Central Pacific Bank chair Catherine NGO joined WCD Hawaii in 2015; in the past decade, she has seen the number of under-40 members grow significantly. | Photo: Aaron Yoshino

“In the same way that she paved the way for us, it’s time now for us to step up to do the same,” she says.

That means strengthening the pipeline for future female board members. In the last 10 years, the share of WCD Hawaii members who are 40 or younger has increased from 20% to 35%, says Ngo. “Our Hawai‘i chapter has been very intentional about using our meetings to provide more networking opportunities and advice to our younger women attendees on setting a path to an eventual board seat.”

Expanded Eligibility

That same focus has led to greater flexibility in the criteria for inviting new members in health care and nonprofit organizations, she says. “We may invite a woman who currently is not sitting on a corporate board, but whom we believe has strong potential to be appointed a seat down the road,” she says, adding that women on the rise in their careers are not only strong board candidates themselves, they can also influence the advancement of other women within their organizations.

WCD Hawaii has shared its influence with other chapters as well. Last year, guests from WCD Japan attended a luncheon meeting of the local chapter, where they discussed the challenges they faced in advancing board membership for women. In response, WCD Hawaii members shared how they go about it: “We told them that we actively engage not just with our women leaders, but also our male leaders, so that we have a broad group of leaders here keeping women’s interests top of mind,” Ngo says.

Reynolds notes that several studies have proven the business case for board gender diversity. For example, a 2021 Harvard Law School Forum that addressed diversity in Fortune 500 boards cited a McKinsey & Co. report that says companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 25% more likely to deliver above-average profitability than companies in the bottom quartile.

Additionally, ISS Corporate Solutions’ research shows that, in areas at the forefront of growth in a post-pandemic economy – corporate sustainability, socially responsible investing, government, sales, marketing and technology in the workplace – women have more skills and experience than white men, who are a dominant presence on American boards.

Reynolds says that, in the face of rapidly evolving technological, environmental and social issues, the case for diversity should be clear. “These are very challenging things, affecting the way we work, what companies survive and fail,” she says. “… If you think about it that way, you need diversity.”

At least one regulator agrees. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved listing rules requiring board diversity to be included in annual disclosures starting in 2022. Nasdaq-listed companies must have at least one diverse director by 2023, and two diverse directors – at least one woman and at least one member of an underrepresented community – by 2025. If a company doesn’t meet that requirement, it has to explain why. Potential penalties include delisting the company after a grace period of 180 days of noncompliance, or the company’s next annual meeting, whichever is later.

Inclusivity and Community Impact

Reynolds says that companies need to take diversity and inclusion on their boards at least as seriously as they take their stakeholders, and that while political pushback might have cooled public rhetoric around diversity, companies are still doing the work. “The community wants companies to show representation from them. Employees want to see that. Companies can’t really ignore this,” she says.

Jennifer Reynolds is CEO of the global nonprofit Women Corporate Directors, which works to increase representation on public and private boards. | Photo: Trish Mennell

WCD maintains a database of board-ready female candidates as a resource for boards and circulates board seat openings to its members. Member benefits include continuing education on board governance; networking events; and mentoring programs like BoardNext, which prepares a new generation of board-ready leaders through training and by introducing them to CEOs, board directors and chairs of nominating committees.

Reynolds says chapters in Minnesota, Florida and other states have successfully launched initiatives to advance women of color. She notes that these programs have had an overflow of qualified candidates from the start. “We’ve had multiple cohorts in those chapters go through, and many of them are getting on boards,” she says.

Once women are recruited, the real work of inclusion begins, says Reynolds. “It’s not just ticking a box to say, ‘I’ve got three; that’s enough, that’s all we have to do.’ That concerns me. The question then becomes, ‘Were you really thinking about changing the dialogue? Did you really want to benefit from these new voices?’ ”

As a longtime member of several corporate and nonprofit boards, Tanabe was originally drawn to the idea of board gender diversity after attending a WCD event in Singapore. She saw a supportive, enthusiastic community of high-achieving women in competitive industries sharing ideas, and envisioned the same for Hawai‘i.

“We tend to become insular if we only look at ourselves and our peers,” she says. “We really need to be able to look outside, try to figure out how we can use the best practices, and adapt it to our style.”

After learning that she needed a minimum of 12 members to form a chapter, she launched her campaign to gauge interest from the local business community in January 2013. WCD was supportive of the idea and the Hawai‘i chapter formally launched in October 2014. But to get there, Tanabe had to overcome some challenges.

WCD requires that its members represent companies with annual revenues of at least $100 million, which is difficult because it limits the state’s candidate pool. “The minimum revenue requirement was the biggest hurdle. This caused many potential members to decline,” says Tanabe.

But she had support from international business icons and WCD leaders with Hawai‘i ties. One was Merle Aiko Okawara, a former Hawai‘i resident and chair of JC Foods, the first woman-owned company to be publicly traded in Japan. The other was Phyllis Campbell, former chair of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. operations in the Pacific Northwest. Okawara founded the WCD chapter in Japan, and Campbell, who traces her family roots to Maui, did the same in Seattle. Campbell also later served as vice chair for WCD Asia and Hawaii.

Tanabe credits Okawara for coming up with the idea for the chapter and Campbell for helping her establish it. But Campbell downplays her and Okawara’s roles. “Merle and I were just accessories. I was simply an advocate saying, ‘I think it’s a good time for this.’ ” Campbell noted that other WCD leaders shared the vision of the Hawai‘i chapter as a bridge between members in Asia and the U.S. mainland, but it was up to Tanabe to make the case to leaders of the global WCD organization.

Tanabe justified easing the minimum revenue requirement for Hawai‘i due to its smaller economy – with a GDP of just over $100 billion, it’s less than 1% the size of the Los Angeles metro economy. WCD eventually agreed, allowing the state’s leading companies to be invited even if they fell short of the $100 million revenue requirement. And while not every qualified business was able to join, that decision helped Tanabe to gather the 12 founding members needed for the first phase: creating the chapter.

Growth and Evolution

To further grow the chapter in 2019, Tanabe petitioned for nominees from private, multi-generational, family-owned companies to have membership dues waived on a case-by-case basis. “She knew that these businesses are really the heart of Hawai‘i,” says Campbell. “She really went to bat for them, and she was spot on.” As of 2024, this waiver has helped to expand the chapter to 26 members.

This year, as a benefit to all members, Tanabe received approval to halve their annual dues, regardless of revenue. Tanabe explains that annual fees had been split between the chapter and the global organization to cover expenses. Key member benefits included two live monthly sessions: WCDirect, covering investor engagement topics, and Peer Exchange. Unfortunately, they were scheduled at times convenient for East Coast members – typically before dawn in Hawai‘i.

“I had lobbied for years for WCD to give Hawai‘i a discount, since we were unable to receive the full benefit of WCD membership. This past year, they finally agreed – our dues are 50% of national,” she says. “Along with the discount – annual fees are now $400 instead of $800.”

Tanabe says the chapter’s growth reflects reality: Hawai‘i now has more women on public and private boards than it did even in the recent past. Today, “there’s a heightened awareness that women will raise questions that cause the board and the company to look at issues in ways that align with business objectives,” she says.

Campbell says inclusivity and community-mindedness have been part of WCD Hawaii’s makeup since its founding. As the featured speakers for the chapter’s launch, she and Okawara say they were impressed that half of the business and community leaders in the audience were men. “That was very different from most WCD chapter meetings at the time,” she says. “Barbara saw that the men of Hawai‘i would play a key role in helping make all these connections and growing the influence of WCD Hawaii. That’s something a lot of chapters have now copied.”

Campbell says WCD Hawaii has an opportunity in the next 10 years to help diversify the state’s economy by helping out-of-state investors understand the importance of building relationships and honoring Hawai‘i’s culture. Any one of WCD Hawaii’s members “would be fantastic advisors, mentors or peers to foster that understanding and help open the door for new businesses to thrive and grow in Hawai‘i,” she notes.