The UK is on track to achieve its target of having 25% female representation on FTSE100 boards by the end of the year.
So says the 2015 Cranfield Female FTSE Board Report which reveals that 23.5% of FTSE100 board directors are now women, leaving just seventeen more places to fill before the target has been reached. This should be achievable, with 31.6% of all new appointments over the past 12 months going to women.
This latest milestone puts the UK well up the diversity rankings with only four counties, including Norway and Sweden, ahead of it in the representation stakes. And the headline news is also good for the FTSE 250 which now has 18% female representation.
However, on a note of caution, whilst the numbers of those being appointed is up, there is still some work to be done to boost the overall numbers of women in leadership positions at every level of an organisation. With executive committees and the executive pipeline still somewhat lacking in diversity, there is a danger that the current trend may plateau sometime in the next few years. This has led one the report’s authors, Dr Ruth Sealy, to comment that “If we are to achieve sustainable change for the future, employers must focus their efforts on women at every level of their organisation.”
