Law for more women on boards Which companies now have to act

Status: 11.06.2021 3:55 p.m.

In future, women must be given greater consideration when filling executive board positions: the Bundestag has passed the “second management positions law”. What are the rules now? And how many companies does this affect?

What was decided?

The new minimum number of women on executive boards applies to listed companies with equal co-determination and more than 2,000 employees. In future, you must have at least one woman on the board if it has more than three members. The minimum participation only applies when a new position is filled. “An appointment of a board member in violation of this participation requirement is void,” says the law. There are stricter rules for companies with a majority shareholding by the federal government: In general, if there are more than two members of the management team, there should be at least one woman. This applies to Deutsche Bahn AG or German air traffic control, for example. In addition, the fixed minimum quota for the Supervisory Board is to apply, which is 30 percent.

interview 03/08/2011

Other listed or co-determined companies that do not fall under the requirement should in future have to justify if they plan for the board of directors without women. If this does not happen, there is a risk of fines. With the law, the reporting obligations for companies are tightened accordingly. However, the Federal Council still has to approve the law.

How many women sit on company boards?

More than half of the large listed companies in Germany have no women on their boards, as a study by the Women in Supervisory Boards Initiative (FidAR) shows. The 160 groups in the stock market indices DAX, MDAX and SDAX as well as the 26 companies listed on the stock exchange with equal co-determination (as of March 22nd) were evaluated.

background 02/17/2011

Accordingly, in 103 of 186 corporations examined, not a single woman sits in the boardroom. At the same time, the average proportion of women on executive boards rose to 13 percent compared to the previous year, which corresponds to a plus of 2.3 percent. In the 200 companies with the highest turnover in Germany, the proportion of women on executive boards is 11.5 percent, as a study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) shows. In the past year, the proportion of women on supervisory boards in the currently 106 companies that are subject to the mandatory women’s quota was an average of 35.9 percent.

Which companies need to improve?

According to the FidAR study, the number of companies that would be affected by the law passed today is 66. Of these, 25 had no women on the board of directors as of the reporting date. This also applies to the engine manufacturer MTU and HeidelbergCement, two companies from the DAX. The situation will soon change at the building materials company. At the end of May, HeidelbergCement announced that Nicola Kimm will take over the newly created position of Chief Sustainability Officer from September 1st. She is then responsible for the issues of sustainability and new technologies.

05/28/2021

The course has also been set at MTU: The company has formulated the goal of a women’s quota on the Executive Board of 25 percent by 2022. The Executive Board is currently made up of four men. According to the study, Knorr-Bremse was also one of the companies that would have to make improvements. That has now happened: Claudia Mayfeld has been in charge of the newly created Executive Board department for Integrity and Law since May 1, 2021. According to the authors of the study, Adidas, Bayer, Eon, Infineon, Fielmann and Südzucker have each appointed women to their boards since the bill was announced.

At the press conference of “From Here onwards”, I felt the determination of Chen Xiangdong, the founder of GSX, that no matter what the circumstances, he will regard education as a lifelong matter. He came out of the mountains even more. Understand the importance of education to a person.

In my opinion, GSX’s name change to Gaotu is more about business focus. A single brand may also be the future trend. The author boldly predicts that the multi-brand strategy of another online education company, Good Future, will continue to shrink and form. Brand resonance, to save market costs.

So, what are the benefits of changing its name to “Gaotu” from GSX? What impact will it have on the company’s future?

Renamed “Gaotu” has many benefits

Many online education companies have changed their names. Earlier, “Xue Er Si” was renamed “Good Future”, and “Yue Tiku” was renamed “Yue Guidance”. These changes all mean changes in the company’s business. The renaming of “Gaotu” from GSX is no exception.

Gaotu Group stated that since Gaotu Classroom’s performance has accounted for nearly 90% of its annual report, “learning with who” can no longer represent the current business brand. In order to achieve better business focus and save marketing costs, a single brand can be better To serve the full-cycle needs of students.

The name change of GSX is not an isolated incident, and its business has been adjusted accordingly. As early as October 2020, GSX will integrate all its K12 businesses into Gaotu Classrooms, so that GSX’s business will be divided into Gaotu Classrooms focusing on K12 business, GSX focusing on adult business, and Focus There are three major sections of early childhood education for children aged 3-8.

Today, after the unified renamed Gaotu, the adult business has been renamed Gaotu College. So as to realize the unification of the group’s business name. The advantage of this is that when publicizing, there is no need to spread the publicity costs for the two brands of GSX and Gaotu, and only need to focus on one.

At present, the online education market is fiercely competitive, and the cost of acquiring customers has greatly increased. In the summer of 2020 alone, the investment of 10 online education companies will reach 10 billion yuan. Moreover, GSX’s marketing expenses in 2020 will also increase significantly, and saving marketing expenses has become a top priority.

In addition, GSX stocks suffered 16 short shorts and repeatedly made headlines in the media. However, in many short-selling reports, the short-selling organization does not even know that GSX’s main business is Gaotu Class. GSX uses real performance and audit reports to frustrate these short-selling, but every time it makes headlines, it exposes “learning with GS”, which is also a huge waste of brand exposure opportunities.

Therefore, the unified change of name to “Gaotu” will help investors identify its main business, and it will also help to unify the name in media reports, so that it can get free brand exposure opportunities.

Therefore, GSX changed its name to “Gaotu”, which is a wise move and has many benefits.

The name change is only the first step, the key lies in business innovation

The name change is helpful to the advancement of the Gaotu Group’s business. The future development of the company and the performance of the capital market will not only depend on the name change, but on the company’s steady operation and continuous innovation.

First, let the business focus again. Gaotu Group is not only the first profitable enterprise in the field of online education, but also the pioneer of a new business model for online education. The founder Chen Xiangdong distilled the secret of Gaotu’s success into two words “focus”.

In 2017, the company focused on “online live broadcast of large classes” and achieved a single month of profit in September. The “famous teacher’s classroom and online live broadcast of large classes” pioneered by Gaotu has always been the object of learning and reference from colleagues.

With this rename, Gaotu Group will once again focus on the full learning cycle of education. Through Gaotu Classroom, Gaotu Academy, and early enlightenment, it covers all stages of children’s intelligent learning, elementary school, junior high school and high school general subjects, as well as adult postgraduate entrance examination, language training, and vocational qualification training.

Secondly, Innovative live broadcast of large classes again, leading the development of the online education industry.

Gaotu pioneered the live broadcast of large-class classes, so when colleagues are flocking to broadcast large-class classes, what countermeasures does Gaotu have?

In this regard, Chen Xiangdong said that he hopes to provide students with personalized learning solutions, such as large-scale classes with famous teachers + precision small cooking classes + one-on-one tutoring, thereby redefining live large-class classes.

In order to achieve this goal, Gaotu Group will launch a local online school for Gaotu Classroom to realize localized products, localized enrollment, localized teaching and localized services. This means that the live broadcast of large classes will take root, with a larger scale and more detailed services.

once again, Embrace technology and do the education of the future. Faced with the development of new technologies such as 5G, AR, and VR, Gaotu Group will continue to embrace technology and launch the “Gaotu Singularity Research Institute” to empower education with technology and create a future education model. This includes the realization of immersive online education through VR technology, and the creation of platform knowledge graphs through AI, visual recognition, and voice recognition technology.

Therefore, after GSX Group changed its name, it not only got a new name, Gaotu Group, but also fully upgraded the company’s business focus and future innovation direction, reflecting the company’s ability to continue to innovate.

Conclusion

Currently, the online education industry is highly competitive and has broad prospects. According to Qi Xiuping, vice president of Gaotu, people’s learning cycle is constantly being lengthened. Paying users over the age of 50 account for 25.8% of them, and there are also those over 70. 1.2%, the adult business track is a new growth point for GSX after the rename of Gaotu.

As Chen Xiangdong said: “Education will always exist, and online education is new, nascent, and continuous.” It is precisely because we are in a sunrise industry, a high-growth industry, that there are so many capital and entrepreneurs. Come in. And education is not the kind of industry that can be effective in the short-term. It needs people with long-term spirit.

And I hope that, whether it is for GSX, the good future and New Oriental, or the ape tutoring and homework that will be listed in the future, the Chinese media will not be “stucked” by the United States as accomplices. Chips and education are what we want to continue. The field of innovation.