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Sarah Raiss believes she didn't get her first job as a director on a large public company board simply because she had a proven track record as a senior executive at TransCanada Corp., or because she took a training course to improve her skills as a board director, or because of her efforts on volunteer boards in Calgary.

She believes a key reason she was asked to join the board of Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. this year was the extensive networking she has done in the corporate world, assisted by a mentor in Toronto who introduced her to key people in the director community.

"I'm convinced part of the way I got that was through additional networking and getting more known in Toronto," Ms. Raiss said. "It's really about people knowing who you are, and knowing what you're going to be like on a board."

Even for senior female executives, these informal networks can be the toughest barrier to joining corporate boards, requiring women to tap into networks some don't even realize exist.

An initiative launching next week is aimed at improving the poor track record of Corporate Canada in recruiting women to their boards by finding ways to persuade companies of the business case for greater board diversity, and by helping to connect senior female executives with people responsible for recruiting new nominees.

The new Board Diversity Council - with 30 founding public companies and other organizations - has set itself the goal of boosting the number of female directors on Canada's 500 largest company boards from 13 per cent in 2007 to 20 per cent by 2013.

The four-year target is more ambitious than it may appear, given that the proportion of women on those boards has grown just three percentage points since 2001, when 10 per cent of all directors on FP500 boards were women, according to data collected by research organization Catalyst.

"There's a strong business case for greater diversity at the board level," says Pamela Jeffery, a board consultant who led the development of the new council and has attracted federal funding for the project.

"And up until this time, there's been no single organization in Canada with a mandate to play a leadership role in seeing these changes come about."

Much of the council's work will be aimed at convincing companies of the business value of adding women to their boards, says Ms. Jeffery, who founded the Women's Executive Network in 1998 to help promote the development of female executives.

She said the council plans to prepare a public report outlining practices adopted by companies that have recruited women as directors and will outline "best practices" that have improved board diversity.

The council is also planning events to help introduce senior board decision makers to women with good qualifications to become directors.

Veteran corporate director Stella Thompson, a director on boards such as Talisman Energy Inc., said the plan is to create a "suite of tools" to help boards add more diversity. And it will try to help board leaders "get outside their comfort zones" and understand the talents women bring, she said.

Ms. Thompson believes the biggest barrier for women has been the normal tendency for people to be more comfortable with those most like themselves - a tendency that can be overcome with exposure and education.

"I think it's the case that, the higher up you get in life and the more control you have over your life, the more you are going to choose what is familiar and comfortable," she says.