Andexactly ten years ago – August 2012 – it began to be applied a revolutionary law for gender equality, the Gulf-Moscow lawwhich obliged to reserve increasing shares of space for women on the boards of directors and boards of auditors of listed companies, quotas that today impose 40 per cent of the presence of women.
Born in Monza, 47, graduated in Philosophy and PhD in Political Science, Alessia Mosca teaches International Trade of the European Union at the Sciences Po University in Paris and is on the board of Crédit Agricole SA From 2014 to 2019 she was a parliamentarian European and in the previous six years Member of the Italian Parliament: she dealt with women’s rights, smartworking, parental leave, sharing of care jobs. In 2021 with the astrophysicist Ersilia Vaudo you founded Il Cielo Itinerante, to bring girls and boys at high risk of dropping out of school to Stem subjects. In 2013 you received the “World of Difference Award” of the International Alliance for Women. Portraits of Alessia MOSCA for ARTE
Alessia Mosca, the woman who brought women to the board of directors
A rule that has made the percentage of women soar from 6 percent in 2011 to 41 percent at the end of 2021 and which puts Italy among the top countries in the world. We talk about it with Alessia Mosca, together with Lella Golfo, the first signatory of the provision.
The impact of the law was considerable. Ten years later, what is your reading of it?
“This law has returned a measurable impact immediately and in detail. We introduced it just a few months after the French twin law and, in a very short time, of all the national norms with the same purpose, ours proved to be the one that produced the greatest difference between the starting figures and those achieved. We were among the countries further backand in short we entered the top five in the world ».
A law that still divides today
A school case. Is the impact related to its sanctioning system?
“It may have acted as a deterrent. The interesting aspect is that we have developed a sanctioning system that is more severe than the French one, and yet there was no need to resort to it because companies have actually introduced even more women than the law provided for“.
You and Lella Golfo represented opposite sides, she in the PD, the Gulf in the PDL, moreover in a very polarized Parliament. How did you manage to pass a law that still divides today, to the point that there are those who would like to cancel it?
“It was certainly not an easy topic to digest, neither on the right nor on the left. And neither I nor Lella Golfo was interested in putting a flag on the law but, given the importance of the topic, make an institutional choice. We have worked with passion to convince our respective sides, so we have worked transversely with women from all sides, convinced that to win you have to fight transversal battles. In the end, the law was approved by a large majority ».
Alessia Mosca: the shares you need
Many study centers conclude that more gender-diverse boards of directors see improved governance and greater corporate attractiveness to shareholders. But there are studies according to which they also have better economic performance. What do you think is the most important impact of the law on quotas?
«The improvement of the overall governance. In fact, it has been found that the average age of the board members has dropped and the level of education has risen. Together, the selection mechanism has been improved – not only for women, but also for men -, overcoming certain opacities and pre-law inertias. I would say, therefore, that in these ten years the quality of the work carried out by the new Boards has also risen and not only companies or the economic system benefit from it, but society as a whole. This is the most important aspect: quotas are not the end, but the means to build a more just society and that it works better ».
But the corporate culture remains the same
The EU has also moved along this path, approving the Women on Boards directive. It must be admitted, however, that if the Gulf-Moscow law has brought more women to the board of directors, it has not changed the corporate culture. CEOs remain essentially male: at the end of 2021 there was a female CEO in just 2 per cent of listed companies; women, then, do not make it into the front line of management, in their careers they are hindered by motherhood …
«Of course, a cascading impact on the entire managerial organization and also on the corporate culture was expected, but a law is not enough to undermine widespread rigidities, which require a complexity of approaches. In my opinion, today may be the time to open a reflection to introduce the quotas also in the executive levels as soon as they come down from the board of directorsas has already been done in France with the Rixain law ».
Change from the inside
There remains the question of female managerial profiles: today they are often not even considered. How do you affect them to promote them?
“It is absolutely a theme. It should be acknowledged that the same companies are adopting interesting policies to increase the number of women at management levels, for example by establishing that for each available promotion, a male and a female candidate must necessarily be considered, with the same skills. This procedure is bringing more women to the top, because it allows to give visibility to female skills that were not even taken into consideration before, due to the known resistance and the habit of co-opting. In fact, if it is crucial that there are more women on the board of directors, it is even more so that those who are working to impact from within in favor of equity, even between genders. Women at the top who perpetuate situations of imbalance play the game of those who do not want to change things. It is important that those who reach the top become ambassadors and ambassadors of change, it is a responsibility. But it must be a common battle, men and women, because the improvements in management are good for the whole system ».
What is, in your opinion, Alessia Mosca, the gender imbalance that has the most negative impact on work and career?
“The fact that the work of caring for children and elderly parents remains the responsibility of women. I am now very opposed to any type of company policy which, to support female work, recognizes longer leave or greater flexibility for women: I consider it a form of ghettoisation. These company policies must apply to everyone and everyone, because care must be shared.
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