Number of women appointed to FTSE 100 boards doubles

Despite jump since Lord Davies issued 25% target, proportion of executives who are female is barely above 13% Britain’s biggest companies have more than doubled the number of women they are appointing to boardroom jobs since Lord Davies, the government’s champion of female board representation, told businesses this year that within four years a quarter of senior bosses should be women. FTSE 100 companies have recruited 23 women to their boards this year – representing about 30% of total board appointments – after Davies said they should sign up to a voluntary target of 25% board representation by 2015. The data was collected by the Cranfield School of Management. This year’s recruitments mark a jump on the 18 women appointed to FTSE 100 boards made for the whole of 2010, representing 13.3% of last year’s total. In another sign of progress, the number of blue-chip companies without a single woman on their boards has fallen to 14, down from 21 last December . The appointments include Lucinda Bell, who became British Land’s finance director in March, and Elizabeth Doherty, appointed chief financial officer at consumer goods group Reckitt Benckiser in February. Baroness Vadera of Holland Park, a former business minister, has taken independent non-executive directorships at pharmaceuticals company AstraZeneca and BHP Billiton, the mining group. However, Cranfield points out that despite this year’s jump, still only 13.9% of FTSE 100 board positions are held by women – or 152 out of 1,086 seats – compared with 12.5% in December. Female board representation in the FTSE 250 is still low, at 8.7% (up from 7.8% in December). Lord Davies of Abersoch welcomed the leap in FTSE 100 board representation but said there was “a danger that the issue becomes forgotten”. He said he was working with business secretary Vince Cable and the prime minister’s office on “ways to keep the pressure up”. In February, Davies told FTSE 350 companies to set their own “challenging targets” and called on chairmen to announce their goals within six months and for chief executives to review the percentage of women they aim to have on their executive committees in 2013 and 2015. “We are making progress but we have to make sure all companies publish their targets in the autumn. Even though it is voluntary, I have written to every company secretary laying out what we are expecting and I am getting letters from boards saying they are going to comply.” He added: “Post August, I intend to make sure I keep the pressure up and there is going to be a bit of naming and shaming of companies not supporting it… There will be an event in the autumn that will make the corporate sector realise the government has not forgotten,” Davies said. “All members of the government want to make sure that companies realise this is not just about publication of the report, but about a long-term transformation of the boardroom. This is a continuous issue that’s not going to go away.” However, he said he had no plans to introduce mandatory quotas, which many women oppose as it could create a perception that they have been hired only because of their sex. Cable said: “These figures are good news. However, we still need to see more women appointed to senior decision-making positions in our largest companies. I strongly urge all chairman to publish their aims by September of this year.” Dr Ruth Sealy, Cranfield’s deputy director of the international centre for women leaders, described her latest female board figures as “very, very encouraging” and “pretty much entirely down to the Davies report”. She added that the recent appointment of Christine Lagarde as the IMF’s first female head “can only be a good thing”. Lagarde has backed quotas as the only way of forcing change. Corporate governance Equality Gender Tom Bawden guardian.co.uk

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