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Women on FTSE 100 Boards Surpass 25% Target

A third of directors at Britain’s biggest companies should be women within the next five years, according to a report by a former minister and bank boss.

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It is understood that Davies’s report will also stress the need to increase the numbers of female executives as well as what more should be done to improve the so-called pipeline of future board members, but the report will make no specific recommendations for additional targets or gender-based ratios.

“Second, in 2013 the 2003 Companies Act was amended to require companies to include a breakdown of the number of female employees on boards, in senior management positions and in the company as a whole – do the same for ethnicity”.

Audeliss said that while 31.3 per cent of non-executive directors at FTSE 100 companies are women, the percentage will likely fall to between 17 and 26 per cent, as women’s terms expire.

Lord Davies said there had been “a cultural change” over the past four years, but said it was time for big companies to make similar progress in the top jobs.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today program Davies said, “The focus of our work was on fixing the boardroom”.

There are no longer any all-male boards overseeing blue-chip companies, and just 15 in the FTSE 250 index which covers the next-biggest category of firms.

Now Davies wants to increase the voluntary target to a minimum of 33% for the boards of FTSE 350 companies by 2020.

Lord Davies rejected suggestions that companies were “padding” boards with female non-executives for public relations purposes, insisting the women appointees were qualified for their posts.

This is still far from representative compared with the actual split of the British population, which is 50.7% female.

“I think they’ve got the message now that getting the right gender diversity is about getting the right representation but it’s also about getting the results”. These top companies have now got to put their house in order and fix the executive committees.

“In order to remain relevant to our clients and communities, we need leaders who come from a wide range of backgrounds, each bringing different skills and views to the table, creating boardrooms that truly mirror our society”, said Melanie Richards, United Kingdom vice chair of KPMG, who worked on the report.

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The former trade minister said the increase in the number of women in these positions has been “steady and sustained” over the last few years, estimating that in 2011, women made up 12.5 percent of board members at companies on the FTSE 100.

A man walks past the London Stock Exchange in the City of Lond