It's 2018, and Rotary International has an All-Male Board. Why?
Almost a year ago, Rotary International had the sad task of choosing two Rotary International Presidents at once. Sad because Rotarian Sam Owori of Uganda died just weeks after being elected as RI President-Elect. However, there was a great deal of hope that a silver lining could be found in this tragedy. Since a President now had to be selected for both the 2018-19 and the 2019-20 Rotary years, perhaps one of them would be a woman, the first in Rotary's history.
This was not be. Barry Rassin, our current RI President, from the Rotary Club of East Nassau, New Providence, Bahamas, was chosen for the 2018-19 Rotary Year, and Mark Daniel Maloney, from the Rotary Club of Decatur, Alabama, USA, was selected for 2019-20 Rotary Year. Two highly qualified leaders, but neither a highly qualified woman.
The reaction online, in the editorial pages of The Rotarian, and in conversations between Rotarians and their family and friends (if mine are anything to go by) was strong. The reaction was even stronger at the end of June 2018 when The Rotarian published the picture of the all-male Board of Directors on facebook. Not only did we not have a female RI President in the leadership chain, there were no women on the 2018-19 Board of Directors. There will be only two on the 2019-20 RI Board.
Instead of playing the blame game, let's look at why this situation exists and start making the changes and calling for the changes that can help us reflect to the world the diversity that is Rotary International. We can start by reading the article in the August Rotarian called "Could you be the next RI President?" I want you to know that I wrote to the magazine's editors suggesting this article. Maybe others did too. The article is not as honest and frank as I would have liked, but it's a start.
Next, take a look at this overview I wrote about how the RI President and RI Board Members are chosen. The information our constitution and by-laws provide is minimal and is not easy to follow. I think that transparency on this issue is key. The more that is known about the process through which leaders are chosen, the better. It is sometimes said that knowledge is power. I prefer to phrase this as knowledge is access.
When you look at the selection process for these top positions, it will be clear that we need more women members, Presidents, Assistant Governors, and District Governors in order to create a larger pool of women eligible to be an RI Director. The more Past RI Directors who are women, the more who are eligible to be chosen as RI President. To date there have been only 10 female RI Directors, one has died, and one is sitting on the Nominating Committee for the 2020-21 RI President. That leaves only eight who could be considered if they were all willing to let their names stand.
Aside from increasing the pool of qualified female candidates, I believe that we need to take a look at what our leaders at the top can do because I think we have a fairly significant problem with our corporate culture. To this end, I have suggested that Rotary International engage a consultant to help us increase our diversity all all kinds within our leadership. To his credit, current RI Director, Rafael "Raffy" M. Garcia of the Philippines, took up my suggestion and will present the idea at the next meeting of the RI Board in October. I recommended that Catalyst, with its board diversification programs, would be a good place to start.
Top and bottom, we all have work to do!
To end this on a positive note, I think that Rotary could learn a lot from Rotaract. I recently spoke at a packed meeting of The Rotaract Club of Toronto (7 of 8 board members are women). What an amazing group of talented, passionate, service-minded, and incredibly diverse people! Perhaps we should have some Rotaract representation on the RI Board. If we really want to ensure that Rotaractors see a place for themselves in Rotary, we could start by inviting them to the table to help reimagine and recreate our organization's leadership.
It's 2018 after all. Time to shake things up! Time to Be The Inspiration.
Yours in Rotary,
Mary Lou Harrison, District Governor 2018-19