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27/02/2017
This week the Hampton-Alexander Review [PDF] highlighted the continued progress being made towards the target of achieving 33% women in senior leadership positions in our boardrooms by 2020. But a forthcoming report from E-reward and the Institute for Employment Studies warns that much of the progress has been achieved by increasing the number of women non-executive directors in UK-listed businesses – with less spectacular growth in the proportion of female executive directors.
So the proportion of female directors is indeed on an upward trend – for both executive and non-executive roles – but women tend to be employed in positions with less responsibility and influence. Even in non-executive director roles, while proportion of women has continued to increase, they are more likely to be employed in more junior positions. For example, while 29.1% of FTSE 100 non-executives are women, just 5.6% of chair roles are held by females.
The remuneration committee chair appears to have been designated as more of a ‘female’ role, with a relatively high 41.4% of these positions held by women in the FTSE 100 and 35.1% in the mid-250.