Critical Mass: What Happens When Women Start to Rule the World - led by Jay Newton-Small

Week Six: Lehman Sisters

Guest: Terrell McSweeny, Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission

Lehman Sisters: Would the global financial crisis have happened if Wall Street was run by women? Probably not. Studies show women are more risk averse than men. And to ensure that something like this won’t happen again, it took a gaggle of female regulators—the SEC’s Mary Jo White, FDIC’s Sheila Bair, TARP Oversight panel’s Elizabeth Warren and, more recently, the Fed’s Janet Yellin—to haul Wall Street back, kicking and screaming, from the brink of crisis. Studies show that companies that have women on their boards are 50% less like to have to restate earnings. And yet, the number of women on corporate boards has stagnated for the last decade at 17%. A look at why the public sector has succeeded where the private sector has not.

Room: Faculty Dining Room, HKS

***All study groups are off-the-record and not for media coverage***