Another wasted year
Despite the Government setting a target of 33% women in leadership roles at FTSE 350 companies by 2020, and despite a flow of formal reviews, The fourth consecutive report, Women Count, produced by Pipeline shows there has been little to no progress. This independent report of the FTSE 350 has found that:
- Only 3.7% of companies have female CEOs – and this is down from 4.6% two years ago
- More than 85% of companies have no women executives on their main boards#
- Only 9% of executive directors on main boards are women, unchanged since 2017
- A mere 17.1% of executive committee members are women, a tiny increase of just 0.8% since 2018
- One in five companies have no female members of their executive committees at all
- At the current rate of progress, it will be almost 2090 before executive committees achieve gender balance#
- Just 5% of executive committee positions are held by women in roles with profit and loss2 (P&L) responsibility
- More than half of FTSE 350 companies have no women on their executive committees in a P&L role at all
- This situation is replicated on the main indices of major economies across the world, with India and Germany having no women CEOs at all, while China, Hong Kong, the USA, Spain and France have only one each
The fact is that many FTSE 350 companies are failing to offer talented women access to key executive positions as such opportunities continue to be given automatically to men.
Why does this matter?
Evidence shows that the failure to draw on a wider pool of ability actually damages the companies themselves. Those FTSE 350 companies with 25% or more women on their executive committees last year achieved an average 16% net profit margin3 while those with no women achieved just 6%. P&L roles are the pipeline for future CEOs and if women are blocked at that stage then they will not get the chance to run companies and companies will not get the chance to benefit from their broader talent pool.
Why don’t companies address the problems of gender imbalance?
Where there are already women at the top of companies, the evidence shows they are much better at progressing other female talent. Research reveals that women CEOs have twice the average number of women in executive positions than their male counterparts, and FTSE 350 companies led by women have an average of seven times more female executives on their main board than those led by men.
It is hard not to conclude that where men are in charge, they tend not to want to let go of their grip and allow women a share of the action.
6 Key Facts
1: Business performance is maximised when they promote women
2: Women on executive committees
3: It’s not just about numbers, the type of role matters
4: Female leaders succeed at progressing all talent, where male CEOs fail
5: Company boards remain a male executive preserve
6: Across the globe, it’s still a man’s world
4 Recommendations
- MAKE IT THE CEO’s RESPONSIBILITY
- ESTABLISH HARD TARGETS
- TRANSPARENCY IS KEY
- GOVERNANCE
