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Men in minority on Fortescue board

A director of DEXUS Funds Management and BlueScope Steel, Penny Bingham-Hall, together with dual Olympic gold medallist and outgoing Deloitte partner Jenn Morris, join Nine Entertainment director Elizabeth Gaines, Gold Road Resources director Sharon Warburton and former vice-president of ExxonMobil Jean Baderschneider on the Fortescue board.

Fortescue announced on Monday that board members Owen Hegarty and Geoff Raby are standing down to make way for the two new appointments, which means the five female non-executive directors now outnumber the four remaining men.

In an apparent swipe at BHP's target of reaching a 50 per cent female global workforce by 2025, Mr Forrest said he was not trying to break any targets but the women were the best candidates for the job.
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BlueScope Steel director Penny Bingham-Hall is joining the Fortescue board. Edwina Pickles
"I'm happy that Fortescue may send a signal that having a majority of women on a board is no longer unusual but we were not driven by that target, we were driven by talent," Mr Forrest told The Australian Financial Review on Sunday.

"I do not hide from the fact the five of them have created corporate history in Australia but was that the target, no; was the target talent, yes."

Mr Forrest warned that a lack of diversity on boards creates an "echo chamber" that can destroy shareholder value.

"If you don't have diversity on a board you get an echo chamber effect of opinion and it leads to quite extraordinary decisions being made like massive acquisitions at the top of a resources cycle which ends up blowing up balance sheets," he said.

"I needed some really serious corporate experience which is why Penny [Bingham-Hall] made the final selection and I also wanted strategy and particularly that angle of youth, the fact that Jenn has that really serious sporting achievement and knows what it's like to win and lose," Mr Forrest said.