2007 Catalyst Census of Women Board Directors of the FP500: Voices From the Boardroom (Report)

Catalyst has tracked the representation of women in corporate governance in Canada since 1998. The 2007 Catalyst Census of Women Board Directors of the FP500 lists women board directors and total directors by company revenue, industry, province/territory, and Canadian-owned versus foreign-owned companies. The 2007 Census also includes data from interviews with more than 50 women board directors

Methodology/Quantitative:

• Catalyst analyzed the board directors of each company in the Financial Post 500, which included publicly traded companies, privately held companies, crown corporations, and co-operatives.
• In June 2007, Catalyst sent letters to our contact for each company to verify the total number of board directors as well as the name, gender, and profession of each director. Our verification rate in 2007 was 95.6 percent.
• For those companies that did not take the opportunity to verify the data, Catalyst has reported the unverified data we obtained from public records.
• Research teams audited all data multiple times, comparing printouts form the database with the verification from companies and public records to ensure accuracy.
• The report represents the gender diversity of corporate governance at FP500 companies as of June 5, 2007.

Methodology/Qualitative:

• Catalyst’s Canadian research team interviewed 56 women who were currently sitting on FP500 boards.
• To analyze the qualitative research, the team developed a relevant list of themes based on the questions asked during the interviews. The codebook for the analysis of the interviews was developed from this list of themes.
• All of the coding and analysis of the interview transcripts was conducted in NVIVO 7, a qualitative software analysis program that provides tools for organizing and sorting the qualitative data.
• The research team reviewed and analyzed themes to look for patterns in the frequency of discussions by specific topics and by company types. Major trends and themes were then drawn out into an emergent storyline.