Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to question the profiles of female directors on top French company boards. It explores the legitimacy attributes of current female directors to identify the profiles sought recently, as firms approach the need to make many new appointments to fulfill...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how an environmental threat (possible quotas for female supervisory directors) might change supervisory board gender composition in SBF120 French company boards between 2008 and 2010. Design/methodology/approach – From a census of supervisory...