Lord Davies has released the third part of his review into female representation at the top-levels of British business. The document has recommended that a third of all boardroom seats should be held by women by 2020. In the past the targets set by Lord Davies have only applied to FTSE100 companies. But now the benchmark has been extended to include all FTSE350 companies.
The UK’s largest companies met the original voluntary target of 25 percent female FTSE100 board members by the end of 2015 earlier in the year. It has been long proven that a more diverse boardroom is much more conducive to better decision making.
The report went on to recommend that the Davies approach be extended for a further five years to ensure the continuation of the ‘substantive and sustainable improvement,’ that has been seen so far.
However, as HRreview reported yesterday, the blossoming diversity of Britain’s boardrooms may begin to wilt over the next 18 months as the terms of current female non-executive directors (NEDs) start to expire. The worrying prediction was made by Audeliss, a diversity focused executive search firm.
Lord Davies, who was a trade minister in the last Labour government, also called on companies to improving the representation of females at executive level. The peer also advised that more women be appointed to chair, senior independent director and executive director roles.
The number of female executive directors remains dispiriting at below 10 percent. Only eight women have been appointed to executive directorship positions across FTSE100 companies since 2011.
