The 2019 Female FTSE Board Report, published by Cranfield University, has found that the number of ethnic minority women on boards gave cause for concern. Using the data available, it was found that of the 297 female directors presently on a FTSE 100 board only 11% are from a black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background.
It was also found that the average term of a BAME female executive director is half that of a male director – just 3.3 years compared to 6.6 years for their male counterparts. However, the gap is not so great when considering non-executive directors, those not involved in day-to-day management responsibilities. The tenure then is an average of 3.8 years for women and 4.3 years for men.
One of the report’s authors, Dr Doyin Atewologun - Director of the Gender, Leadership and Inclusion Centre at Cranfield - stated:
“This begs the question of whether women are appointed to FTSE 100 boards for symbolic rather than substantive reasons.”
The report, however, states that it has found that the number of women in general has increased over the past 21 years from 6.7% to 32% today. The women come from particular educational backgrounds; they are a certain age; they have various racial/ethnic backgrounds and they have rich work experiences.
It was also found that female board members tended to be younger than male board members with the average male director being over 59 years old, compared to over 57 years of age for women.
Dr Atewologun suggested that this could hint at a bias against appointing older women.
Another of the report’s authors, Susan Vinnicombe - Professor of women and leadership at Cranfield - said at the launch of the report:
“We get glass ceilings within glass ceilings – so we must be very aware, all of us, that it’s not just hitting the numbers. Once women get onto boards, we want to see them being taken seriously.”
Speaking at the same event, Fiona Cannon OBE - Group Director for Responsible Business, Sustainability and Inclusion at Lloyds Banking Group, said:
“It is hard yards work. Every week, I’m looking at the vacancy list to make sure that women are on the shortlists.” Every month, we look at all the data to see whether women are leaving, whether they’re being promoted. The chief of staff and myself sit down and do it. It’s that relentless attention to detail that’s important, because it can so easily go the other way.”
She added:
“Unless a CEO believes that’s really important for their business, nothing is going to happen.”
Brenda Trenowden CBE - Chair of the 30% Club - added the fact that many companies were not undertaking enough data analysis to identify the causes of the failure of women to progress.
She said:
“People are throwing money at various things that are not really working. We’re still just tinkering around the edges of the pipeline and actually I believe that we really need to focus much more on culture.”
The latest figures reported by a separate review - the government-backed Hampton-Alexander Review - also showed over 32% of board positions across the top 100 listed firms in 2018 were held by women.
Sir Philip Hampton - Chair of the review - warned:
“The FTSE 250 is working hard to catch up but still too many boards have only one woman and remarkably today there are four all-male boards in the FTSE 250.”
He added:
“We are expecting to see good progress in the number of women appointed into senior leadership roles this year, with those companies having worked hard for several years exceeding the 33 per cent target and reaping the benefits.”
