By Richard Branson (Contributor, Live Mint & The Wall Street
Journal) I recently watched 12 Angry Men — that classic 1957
film about a jury struggling to decide the fate of an 18-year-
old man who has been charged with murder. The movie gives you a
sense of how the legal system worked in the US back then, when
juries were less diverse. By today’s standards, we would find it
unsettling if a jury were comprised of 12 middle-aged white men.
So why have so many business leaders been slow to take notice
when women are absent from the boards of their companies? In
most developed nations, the percentage of women in the labour
force has increased dramatically since the 1950s. When 12 Angry
Men was produced, less than a third of American workers were
female, whereas today, the US Department of Labor says that
number now stands at 47%. Despite this change, men are still
much more likely than women to hold senior positions. In
particular, the ratio of female board members has lagged behind,
with less than 14% of these po