Joan Lamm-Tennant, a Villanova University tenured professor with a Ph.D. in finance, had never served on a board or worked as a CEO, writes Alisha Haridasani Gupta for The New York Times.

With that background, no search firm would have ever called her to serve on a board of directors. Even so, Bill Entringer, then chief executive of Selective Insurance, decided in the early 1990s to appoint her anyway.

Now a law in California mandates that every public company in the state have a woman on the board by the end of 2019. They face a $100,000 fine if they don’t.

By the end of 2021, companies with five board members must have at least two female directors and at least three on six-person boards, with stiffer penalties for not complying.

Now there’s a scramble in California to find hundreds of female directors, many of whom, like Lamm-Tennant, don’t fit the traditional mold.

The hope is a diverse board will lead to enhanced performance by the company.

Not everyone’s keen on the new law. Two lawsuits filed this year argue it is unconstitutional because “it seeks to force shareholders to perpetuate sex-based discrimination”.

Read more about the search for women directors here.

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