The insight comes from Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP's latest report on women GC on Canadian boards
Drawing on a broader set of data than in previous years, the latest edition of an annual Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP report found that while female general counsels outnumber their male counterparts on the boards of high and mid-value Canadian companies, men dominate the boards of small-cap corporate boards.
Large-cap boards featured a 2.8-1 ratio of female GCs to male GCs in 2024, and mid-cap boards had a 1.6-1 ratio of female GCs to male GCs, the report found.
Small-cap boards meanwhile had a 1-1.4 ratio of female GCs to male GCs the same year.
“While we had seen that in our previous dataset women GCs achieved parity in large and mid-cap companies… in small caps, they [hadn’t],” says Stacy McLean, a Blakes partner who contributed to the report and framed the findings as a “growth opportunity” for women.
“In those boards, men are still holding the board GC seats,” she says.
Published last week, Blake’s eighth annual board report on female GCs on Canadian public company boards considers all corporate issuers on the Toronto Stock Exchange for the first time, while previous reports focused only on the S&P/TSX Composite Index.
The move significantly expands the report’s dataset, which now reflects information on small-cap companies. This year’s board report considers 770 corporate issuers. In contrast, the last three editions of the report considered fewer than 250 issuers.
The broader range of data has led to notable insights. For example, the report found that last year, GCs held 4.4 percent of the seats on large-cap boards and 4.5 percent of the seats on small-cap boards. GCs meanwhile held 5.3 percent of the seats on mid-cap boards – making them a “strategic access point” for GCs with board aspirations. The report suggested mid-cap boards “may be more open to GC expertise as a competitive advantage.”
The report also found that certain sectors – namely, energy and materials – have seen a surge in GC board appointments since 2016. S&P/TSX Composite Index data from 2016, 2021, and 2024 show a steady rise in GC appointments in those sectors. According to the 2024 data, there were 27 total GC appointments in the energy sector and 26 in the materials sector.
However, the 2024 data that reflects all TSX issuers significantly increase those figures, showing 52 total energy appointments and 76 materials appointments.
These rises make energy and materials “prime sectors for women GCs to pursue their board path,” the report said.
McLean says Blakes was motivated to expand its dataset this year so it could better capture the “full spectrum” of Canadian public companies and identify underexplored board opportunities for female GCs. McLean also highlights insights in the report from a roundtable she moderated with four female legal executives, who share their experiences and advice on board work.
These executives advise “learning to network early and intentionally, targeting these small cap entities that… don’t have as many female GCS on their boards… [and] taking that first opportunity if it’s the right fit for you and then leveraging off of that to other board positions,” McLean says.
