Feb 22 (Reuters) – Women now make up nearly 40% of the boards of Britain’s biggest 100 companies, compared with just 12.5% a decade ago, with recommendations in place to enable more female representation in top management, a government-backed report said on Tuesday.
Researchers reviewed women’s representation in about 24,000 positions in firms on Britain’s blue-chip FTSE 100 (.FTSE), mid-cap FTSE 250 (.FTMC) and FTSE 350 (.FTLC) indices.
This puts Britain in second place globally, up from fifth in 2020 and just behind France which has a nearly 44% representation, according to the report.
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The review also set out four new recommendations, including increasing the minimum board and leadership representation of women in FTSE 350 companies to 40% by the end of 2025.
In July, Britain’s financial regulator also said at least 40% of board members in blue-chip companies should be women. read more
The latest report also found that female board representation in 2021 in the FTSE 250 and FTSE 350 grew by roughly 37% and 38% respectively.
British business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng lauded the progress, but said there was still more work to be done, with many companies yet to hit a 33% target set by previous reviews.
“Only one in three leadership roles and around 25% of all Executive Committee roles are held by women and there are very few women in the CEO role,” Kwarteng in a statement.
The report also said that number of women in chair roles across the FTSE 350 rose to 48 in 2021 from 39 a year earlier.
Water utilities Severn Trent and Pennon (PNN.L), and Holiday Inn owner IHG (IHG.L) are three of the companies with women in chair roles.
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Reporting by Sinchita Mitra in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Macfie
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