| dc.description.abstract | Sabanci University Corporate Governance Forum (CGFT), in strategic partnership with Egon Zehnder International
(EZI) Turkey, initiated the “Independent Women Directors (IWD)” project in 2012. The initiative was motivated by the
CMBT’s (Capital Markets Board of Turkey) ruling that came to force in January 2012 requirıng 1/3 of the board
members to be independent. Although the same ruling recommended inclusion of at least one female director, the
result was dilution of boards with respect to women from 12.5% in 2011 to 11.5% ın 2012, since companies increased
their board size and predominantly appointed men as independent directors to comply with the ruling. IWD is a
response to this unintended consequence of the ruling.
The IWD Project aims to encourage and help companies to consider female candidates when nominating
independent directors. To this end, a database of qualified women is maintained. Each candidate application is
evaluated against the criteria established by the Forum and EZI Turkey. As of the end of November, 2020 IWD
database has 308 board-qualified women. The women who are qualified for the IWD database are included in the
GBRW database if they apply, without going through a separate assessment process.
In 2013, CMBT revised its recommendation upon considering the draft proposed by IWD. Accordingly, the new clause
4.3.9 of the CMBT’s current Corporate Governance Principles required the listed companies set a target rate for
female board members of no less than 25% and a target date and establish a policy that will make it possible to
reach these targets. The board is expected to evaluate and report the progress made in reaching the target on an
annual basis. The ruling is based on the “Comply or Explain” approach and the companies who do not set a target
must explain the reasons why they don’t in their mandatory annual Corporate Governance Compliance Reports.
Since 2012, the IWD Project has helped a number of companies and investors, including IFC, to find suitable female
board nominees. The Project also includes a shareholder initiative that makes use of mandatory electronic general
assemblies in Turkey to ask questions to the boards with all male boards about their gender diversity targets. Within
the scope of the IWD project, researchers collect data on boards, analyze the trends, conduct academic research
and disseminate the findings. Using the data collected, researchers calculate Women Empowered Boards Index
developed by scholars at Sabancı Business School and award boards that score highest in various categories. | en_US |
