Women coming into the workforce now tend to be better educated than men. They are also better at multi-tasking and, more often than not, are the ones who make all the major consumer decisions for households. And yet they are under-represented in the ranks of management and on boards. The latest research shows that only one in 10 of board seats at the world's 50 largest banks are held by women and some don't have any women at all. When a company's board does not represent the broader market, it's bad business. It's a point taken up too by management thinker Tom Peters in his book Re-Imagine. Newsweek recently ran a feature on When Women Lead. It asks the question how the growing number of women rising to the top will change the culture of the workplace. Yeah right. Given that there are so few there, you can't expect too big a change in the immediate future. As I said, bad business. And if you want to check out the business opportunities that are being ignored, check out Michele Miller's WonderBranding blog. Still, there are limits. Consider the case of Norway for example where the new coalition government in Oslo says it's considering introducing a law which would require 40% of boardroom posts to be filled by women. In theory, companies that fail to meet the proposed quota risk being closed down. If that happens, watch the mass exodus of companies from Norway.