CIAA Sees More Women Entering Caravan Industry Leadership
Caravan Industry Association of Australia recently held its annual elections with a welcome change of gender composition amongst the National Board.
Historically, the camping industry has been dominated by men in senior positions of leadership and customer facing sales and service, both within industry businesses and representative bodies — but this is changing and quickly.
Australia’s largest companies in even the most male-dominated industry sectors have welcomed women into the boardroom and senior leadership roles. There are now no ASX-200 companies who do not have at least one female board member in their ranks.
At the recently held Caravan Industry Association of Australia Annual Board Elections, three of the six announced board members were women: Kate Meldrum (COO of Tourism Holdings Australia), Nikki Milne (CEO of Tasman Holiday Parks), and Margaret Shannon (GM of Tiona Holiday Park and Future Leaders Committee Chair). These additions brought the total to four out of nine board members, which is well above the 26.8% average (2018-19) of female directors in the non-public sector as reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in the Gender Indicators report. This was on the back of nearly 50% of all nominations received being women.
Importantly, each successful board member received her place on the board based solely on merit rather than a forced quota.