Women make up 30 per cent of general counsel posts at top Australian corporations, while they hold fewer than 10 per cent of key executive positions elsewhere in those companies.

Executive positions

The findings come from the Australian Stock Exchange’s ‘General Counsel Report’, which measured the state of the in-house profession as of summer this year.
The report goes on to show that women GCs are performing better across the entire spectrum of Australian business, with females holding only 18 per cent of executive positions at Australian companies generally.

Breeding ground

Other key findings in the report show the importance of private practice as a breeding ground for top positions at Australian corporate legal departments, with 75 per cent of GCs coming from law firms. There were also signs of some fluidity in the top companies, with 12 GCs having changed roles during the financial year in the run up to the report.
Interestingly, Australian general counsel appear to be increasingly comfortable with new forms of communicating as some 65 per cent told the researchers that they ‘actively engage’ with social media, with the most common being LinkedIn profiles.