SHATTERED GLASS
Women In The Boardroom

SOURCE: The Cranfield Female FTSE Board Report 2010

Last September the EU Commission issued a Gender Equality Strategy which stated that the Commission would consider targeted initiatives to improve the gender balance in decision making. Vice-President of the Commission Viviane Reding, in her capacity as EU Commissioner for Justice, has voiced a desire to see 30% of supervisory board members of publicly listed companies in the EU taken by women by 2015; and 40% by 2020. A long mark off what the most recent Cranfield Female FTSE Board Report figures.

The recent release of the Female FTSE 2010 saw another year of barely perceptible change in the representation of women in leadership positions of UK PLC's top 100 companies – up from 12.2% of FTSE 100 Directors to 12.5% – over the past year.

Overall, the percentage of women on FTSE 100 boards shows a three year plateau. The number of companies with no female directors has decreased to 21 and the number of companies with more than one woman on the board has returned to the 2008 figure of 39. Only 13% of new appointments went to women.

This year, the report turns the spotlight on the FTSE 250 companies, where 52.4% of companies have no women on their boards. Just 7.8% of FTSE 250 board directors are women. Eighty-two FTSE 100 companies have women on their executive committees.

Read more about Women In The Boardroom in the Spring 2011 issue of WMB, on newsstands now!