Ralph Norris

And he was one of those very large, well-spoken, very loud, very intelligent Americans that you thought, oh my gosh, you know, very white male, you know.

But it's interesting because he was speaking on a panel with Ralph Norris, who was the then CEO of CBA, business journalist Alan Kohler.

And 2010, of course, was the year that several companies publicly stepped up on the issue of gender diversity and CBA had advanced targets of having 35% women in senior roles by 2014.

Ralph Norris, a New Zealander, was a real leader in this space.

But Allstar, a media company, was a quiet achiever.

It's a young company and had 47% of women in executive roles, which was huge.

It's 51 business leaders and they are luminaries, right? We are talking...

Ralph Norris, Antonia Watson of ANZ, Murray Robertson of Downer, Neil Pavia Smith of Forsyth Bar, Dame Jenny Gibbs, Jason Boyes of Infertile.

We called a lot of these people, asked them to come on the radio.

None of them are prepared to speak about it.