Progress for the Government’s Gender Agenda

Six months on, City Women’s Network (CWN) commends the progress of the Lord Davies Review to introduce aspirational targets to achieve more female directors on UK Board.   

CWN is pleased to see that FTSE companies have shown significant strides forward with increasing more women in the Boardroom - 22.5% of all board appointments have been female since the Review was published.  However, CWN is disappointed that some corporates lag woefully behind - with 14 all-male boards still existing within the FTSE 100.

To help accelerate progress CWN calls on the Government to initiate three positive actions: -

1. Seek the engagement and support of investors to influence the Chairman and FTSE senior executive committees.
    
2. Continue to educate Chairmen and Corporate communities responsible for the business and company performance about the significant commercial benefits of gender diversity most particularly by profiling companies that are leading the way.
   
3. Publish a regular ‘gender parity footprint’report highlighting transparent progress with female board appointments and identifying all male boards.
    

Following its recent House of Lords Our World in 2015 Symposium, the Network published a Manifesto for ‘Changing the Global Ranking for Women by 2015', and called for a visible and transparent  ‘gender parity footprint’.   

CWN advocates too that professional development is the answer to increasing the flow of the female talent pipeline - at all levels.   CWN’s series of Board Readiness and professional development programmes are responding to this, helping members to realise career aspirations.

CWN’s thriving member base consists of entrepreneurs, SME’s and Corporates and it is also proud to have Corporate Members with forward looking Chairmen who are engaged with the Government’s gender agenda.  Allied to the CWN platform, they are powerful voices for supporting women in business.

India Gary-Martin, CWN President, said: “While some change is good, there must be strong engagement with those organisations that have all male Boards – this will help speed up the pace of change. It is also positive to see the introduction of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) changes to the UK Corporate Governance Code to strengthen the principle on boardroom diversity. Also, the recent creation of the Voluntary Code of Conduct for headhunters will address best practice across the relevant search criteria and processes relating to Board level appointments.”