Intermate chose a woman

Intermate A/S, an IT and service company, made a targeted effort to get a woman for their supervisory board. Accordingly, they contacted Karrierekvinder.dk who presented them with fourteen candidates matching the profile Intermate was looking for.

After a round of interviews, the company chose Elisabeth Grüner, Director of Scorpio Strategi A/S. She has an M. Sc. (Political Science) and a B. Sc. (Information Technology) and twenty years of management experience, including stints as deputy director in the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs, director for Symbion Science Park and chairman of the board for The Dacapo Theatre.

"Our owners agreed with our wish to add a new member to the board - preferably a woman. We discussed it with the board members, who at the time comprised two representatives for our owners and two external professional members," says Richard L. Hansen, CFO, Intermate.

Reconnoitred the network

The board reconnoitred its immediate network, which produced no results. "We discussed potential candidates each of us knew. But it wasn't until we launched a targeted process that we got in touch with Aase Hoeck, who is responsible for the headhunting database Karrierekvinder.dk," he says.

Intermate was looking for a woman who could supplement the male-dominated environment that often prevails in a technologically-oriented company. We wanted a woman who is focused on growth, knowledgeable of the IT sector and, not least, who has a network she is willing to use. Three of the candidates met these criteria and we chose Elisabeth Grüner.

"We were seeking a candidate with the same professional qualifications that we would expect of a man. But joining a board involves two aspects. There are the formal qualifications which are more of a discipline. The second and more predominant aspect deals with one's personal experience and professional standards," Hansen states. In his experience, working environments consisting of purely men or women become slightly trivialised.

Diversity is best

"Professionalism is boosted by diversity. It prompts people to focus more on whatever they have in common, which is the task itself, instead of falling into self-centred activities where personality issues quickly grow out of proportion," he says.

Hansen is thoroughly convinced the board has a more professional profile as a result.

"We chose a candidate who candidly has stated that she doesn't think that the management should be a member of the board. She also believes that the board is inherently responsible for challenging the management to get out of its rut," Richard L. Hansen states.

This caused the management to withdraw from the board, which now comprises the three external members.

Elisabeth Grüner is not bothered by the fact that the board deliberately sought a woman.

"I think it's rather nice. You often feel a little lonely if you end up as the only female member of a board. But in this case I was chosen for the very reason that they wanted someone who had something else to contribute as a woman, in addition to my professional qualifications," Grüner says.

She doesn't feel that any special considerations are made for the fact she is a woman.

"Men and woman complement each other, which is why it's important to have both sexes represented on a board," Grüner asserts. She originally chose to register her profile on Karrierekvinder.dk because she feels she has qualifications that could add value to the workings of a board and, thus, of a company. And this network enables her to heighten her profile.

"Women tend to be more self-effacing than men, which is why they're not the first people men think of - because it's usually the men who are doing the choosing. That's unfortunate, too, because women represent a resource that companies can profit and benefit from, but our qualities often remain untapped," Elisabeth Grüner concludes.

Børsen, Published 20 July 2007