I've sat in rooms where I was the only woman at the table making decisions that affected thousands of employees, and I know firsthand how different, and better, those conversations became once more women's perspectives were genuinely represented, not just tolerated.
Norway's mandatory 40% board quota, in place since 2008, has been studied extensively, and while it succeeded in raising female board representation, several studies found limited spillover into more women reaching actual executive or CEO roles, suggesting quotas alone don't fully address the deeper pipeline problem.