LADOL Boss: Equal Female Representation Boosts Company’s Profit by 42%

Eromosele Abiodun

The Managing Director of Lagos Deep Offshore Logistic Base (LADOL), Dr. Amy Jadesimi has revealed that a company with more female in its board will be 42 per cent more profitable than companies that don’t have female directors.

Jadesimi, who stated this as part of efforts to mark this year’s International Women’s Day, said women see the world differently and makes decision differently.

Speaking on a CNBC Africa ‘Power Launch’ programme, the LADOL boss said: “If you have women on your board of directors your company is going to be 42per cent more profitable than companies that don’t have female directors. Part of that comes from the fact that women look at the world differently and they make different decisions.”

Citing the United Nations Business and Sustainable Development Commission (UNBSDC) report titled: ‘Better Leadership, Better World: Women Leading for the Global Goals’, she said women are able to increase both private and public sector profit by 42per cent because they talk about sustainability, they bring in more ideas that help the company and public sector achieve sustainability.

“So, if you don’t have women in your company or in your government, you are going to miss out from all that information,” she said.

To help women achieve their goals in work place, she recommended that both the private and public sector must invest money to achieve female empowerment and equality adding that the status quo of female inequality in work place must change.

One of the key areas to long term investment, according to her is human resources.
“One of the major areas has to be in human resources. How do you recruit? How do you support women who are already in the company? If you find out what most companies do, then in the lower level of your company you will have just equal ratio men to women but by the time you get to the top level of the company you don’t have women. First you must do an analysis why that is happening. The common reason is that women have to have babies but then you don’t have policies that attract them to come back in and have flexible working time.

“Another thing we need to do is embrace what they do in Sweden where they give paternity leave. It doesn’t have to be the women taking a year out from her career; the man can do it as well. Initiatives like this are very successful because in other countries it has evolved in an increase of female leaders,” she said.

She urged men to participate and join in changing the status quo however stressing that the change is going to be driven by women who educate themselves and make tough choices about their career, strategic choices that enable them to move to the top.

“If you want more female leaders you also have to bring the public sector. The public sector need to look at issues like ‘Do we have equal representation of women in primary and secondary schools? Do we have an equal number of women going into universities? This is something the private sector cannot necessarily do alone. We believe it is something the private sector can take leadership in but we also need to push the public sector and make sure women are getting the education they need particular in countries like Nigeria and other developing countries where women are disadvantaged on average. We need to do more to make sure women are getting the opportunity as men,” she said.

On efforts Nigeria achieve female equality in company’s top position, she said: “I think in Nigeria, people are now determined to see this happened but what we haven’t seen enough initiatives coming through. Rwanda has done spectacularly well. I am a great admirer of the strides they’ve made and the way they institutionalised these initiatives. We need to do the same thing in Nigeria.

“We have to remember that Nigeria is a vast country with the largest population in Africa so, there won’t be a one side solution. The solution we will implement in one state will be different to those to be implemented in Lagos for example. The important thing is that these initiatives have to be institutionalised by the government at the state and federal level. This report pushes them to do that by showing huge economic benefit Nigeria will get if we take the trouble to bring these initiatives and make them part of the government programme.”