Worcester Business Journal

10 Worcester Business Journal | March 5, 2018 | wbjournal.com Diverse candidate pools lead to diverse companies, leading local firms say BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor The Boardroom Gap THIRD IN A THREE-PART SERIES The best candidate gets the job W hen Barry Maloney became the Worcester State University president in 2011, he made a point of converting the school's board of trustees and executive team to closely match the makeup of the majority- female student body. Maloney's initiative has worked. Five of Worcester State's top nine administrators in Maloney's cabinet are women, and Maloney has appoint- ed all but one of them. Eight members of the school's 11-person board of trustees are women. "Given that our student body is roughly 60-percent female and 40-per- cent male, it's great to have a board that reflects that breakdown," Maloney said. Of the 75 Central Massachusetts organizations examined by WBJ for its The Boardroom Gap series about gen- der diversity in business leadership, 19 had at least 40 percent women among their senior executives and members of boards of directors. Among those leaders, organizations like WSU, Heywood Hospital and Fitchburg State University prioritized hiring women into those senior roles in order to match the gender makeup of either their employee or customer bases. And those organiza- tions were able to switch from male-dominated leadership to be more gender inclusive not by always picking the female candidates, but by expanding their candidate pools to be more inclusive of varying backgrounds and expertises. "I don't want to sound like a cliche," Maloney said, "but I hired the best people that presented themselves." Creating a diverse candidate pool Since he took over as president and CEO of Heywood Hospital in Gardner in 2011, Winfield Brown has purposely made the gender mix among leadership match the predominantly-female work- force, including having women in 18 of 24 director-level management positions. "Women are very holistic in how they look at our organization," Brown said, calling the better gender diversity a benefit for the hospital's leadership. Brown created more gender diversity by empha- sizing promoting workers with clinical backgrounds – typically women – into leadership roles. "They know why we're in the business of caring, and they want to find the best way of delivering that care," he said. Fitchburg State University President Richard Lapidus said the school has been fortunate to have a wide range of candidates since he started in the posi- tion in 2015. His nine-member team includes four women. "In all cases, we're always looking for Worcester State seeks to have the gender breakdown of its leadership be similar to its student population. Pictured are (clockwise from top left) administrator Ryan Forsythe; student Joshua Buck; administrators Julie Kazarian, Renae Lias Claffey, Stacey Luster and Carl Herrin; students Cody Riedle and Kathryn Salemme; administrator Lois Wims; students Brenda "Tete" Thomas and Julia McCarthy; President Barry Maloney; students Nathaniel deVries, Sarah Cross, Madison Barron, Jay Dahlstrom, Ashley Emery, Kaila Bavin and Amanda Whalen. P H O T O / E D D C O T E

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