After years of campaigning for more gender-diverse corporate boards, ION published its Ninth Annual Status Report on Women Directors and Executive Officers of Public Companies. The good news? We're making progress, and have several thriving companies that lead by example.

Let's face it -- the number of women on boards is a problem, and everyone knows it. Even old-school companies with homogenous leadership understand the business case for increasing the number of women on boards.

Companies won't change unless someone forces them to do so. Women on boards bring higher profits, higher quality earnings, better share price growth, better decisions and higher innovation.

Clearly, it looks odd these days for a board to be comprised of only white men, but does diversity make a difference in real economic terms? Does it actually affect the bottom line?

Should the United States jump on the female quota bandwagon? Norway has had a quota law in place for the past four years stipulating that all publicly...