Canada: "Board Games 2008" corporate governance survey published

Global and Mail's annual corporate governance survey - Board Games 2008 - has been published. In an accompanying article it is reported:

The faces around Canada's board tables are changing as top-tier companies become more willing to add new directors to their ranks who have never held corporate board seats, new research by consultancy Spencer Stuart shows. Spencer Stuart reviewed the profiles of all new directors who joined the boards of 100 of Canada's largest companies over the past eight years. A total of 619 new board positions were filled in the period. One of the greatest shifts during the period was in the willingness of boards to appoint so-called "first-timers" - defined as directors who have not previously sat on the board of a significant public company.

Between 2001 and 2004, 16 per cent of new directors were first-timers on a corporate board, the Spencer Stuart research shows, climbing to 21 per cent in the period from 2005 to 2008. In 2008 alone, 23 per cent of newcomers were first-time directors.The inclusion of more women on boards is also one of the factors driving the growing number of first-timers, the survey found. Between 2006 and 2008, women accounted for 21 per cent of new directors added to top-100 company boards. From 2002 to 2005, in contrast, about 14 per cent of new directors were women. In 2008 alone, 26 per cent of newly appointed directors were women, the survey found".