Board diversity means better financial performance

We're going to go ahead and file this report under the heading "obvious but nice to have some actual data for it."It's not hard to get people to agree that creativity is sparked by new encounters and new perspectives; mixing people up is the basic building block for creative expression and new ideas, which is one of the reasons why cities are such hotbeds of innovation.But different perspectives do more than just generate new ideas. They provide better results -- as summarized in the media release for this research report from Catalyst:

The report found higher financial performance for companies with higher representation of women board directors in three important measures:

• Return on Equity: On average, companies with the highest percentages of women board directors outperformed those with the least by 53 percent.
• Return on Sales: On average, companies with the highest percentages of women board directors outperformed those with the least by 42 percent.
• Return on Invested Capital: On average, companies with the highest percentages of women board directors outperformed those with the least by 66 percent.

A quick thanks to Denter Doug Menuez for linking the study on our email list :)