By George Anderson
Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, is not happy about his own company's lack of females in top management positions and he's looking to change that.
"We ought to have more women in various management positions, because women are the ones who decide almost everything in the home," he said in a documentary aired on Sweden's TV4.
"It's very strange that we don't have more women decision-makers and women in positions of power," he said.
Charlotte Lindgren, a spokesperson for IKEA, said 30 percent of the company's store managers and 20 percent of top management are women. Two of the 11 members of the company's board of directors are female.
According to a report on the English-language Swedish news site The Local, "The issue of gender equality in the boardroom has been a topic of recent debate in Scandinavia, with many companies vowing to increase their female representation."
Under a new Norwegian law, "500 or so public limited companies are scrambling to appoint at least 40 percent women to their boards within the next two years or face dismantling," according to the report.
Moderator's Comment: Do you agree with the sentiment of Ingvar Kamprad that, "It's very strange that we don't have more women decision-makers and women in positions of power."? How long will it be in the U.S. before women make up the same percentage of top management positions as their male counterparts? Can equality in the board room be achieved without government intervention? - George Anderson - Moderator