Ask that woman to the corporate party

One of the more fashionable theories about the credit crunch is that it wouldn't have happened if women had been in charge.

All that testosterone-driven risk-taking, why, it wasn't women's way of doing business, was it? You can make the suggestion without much fear of contradiction, because of the FTSE 100 companies, only four per cent of the executives on boards are women and only 14 per cent of the non-executive directors.

Bolstering the number of women non-executive directors was the agenda for an event yesterday run by the Professional Boards Forum, which brought together corporate bosses and women candidates. Yep, the bosses were, with a couple of exceptions, men.

Quite what women bring to the corporate party was spelled out by Roger Carr, chairman of Cadbury and Centrica. Women, he declared, "have a different mindset, a different style". That included "attention to detail, a work ethic".

Diversity, he went on, makes boardrooms "more civilised". And, he said pointedly, boards should have more than one woman. (One woman looks like tokenism.) Alison Carnwath, chairman of Land Securities (no, not chair) and MF Global Inc, was more measured. "Like many women, I am fairly open and straightforward and don't panic." That's telling 'em.

All of which raises the question, if women are so brilliant, why aren't there more female non-execs already? Sir Philip Hampton, chairman of Sainsbury's and now RBS thought it was a matter of time: "Women with the right sort of experience have only just got to the age where they can take on the job in sufficient numbers." Alison Carnwath blamed headhunters.

Actually, the qualities that the bosses identified as important - the ability to listen rather than shout, to subsume ego in the interests of the company - had "female" written all over them.

A couple of things struck me. One, no one even suggested Norwegian style quotas as a simple way to remedy the dearth of women. Pointedly, everyone spoke about appointment on MERIT.

The other was that the most successful woman there, Alison Carnwath, had the supreme confidence that comes with an upper class bearing and diction, as well, obviously, as steely competence.

By comparison with education and background, gender may not be the most important thing. Oh, and given this was a group of women potentially in competition, everyone got on really very well.