APN CEO Miller: Industry needs more women in senior roles
The CEO of Australia’s third largest publisher APN News & Media Michael Miller has told a forum that there are not enough women in senior leadership position in the sector and urged them “to do more” about the issue.
Speaking on an all male panel at the newspaper industry’s Future Forum yesterday which consisted of himself, Fairfax Media CEO Greg Hywood, News Corp Australia boss Julian Clarke and West Australian Newspapers chief Chris Wharton, Miller said that while media outperformed some other sectors more emphasis was need on the topic.
“It’s a challenge, I think it’s sad that we don’t have more females in leadership positions,” said Miller, “however, putting it into context the University of the Sunshine Coast did a survey, last year looking at the number of women working in media, not just newspapers, and found that 55 per cent are female, that’s up from a third ten years ago.”
He also pointed to television as another male industry, with Lou Barrett having recently broken the logjam with her appointment to lead ten’s media sales. “I look at not just newspapers but other media, like TV, the news directors are men, there’s one (female) sales director, but most of the station managers and CEOs are male. If you look at the ASX top 500 companies in Australia and media actually out perform the other companies in females in senior roles,” he said.
I recommend a quick look at the Pay TV sector if you would like an example of gender diversity.
Of course he could simply appoint people rather than talk it up?
What is Hywood saying? It’s rare few who make it into senior roles at Fairfax. In my experience, they’re all streets ahead of their game playing male counterparts.