Money, money, money, must be funny, in the rich man's world - Building Gender Balanced Business

The scarcity of women

In the FTSE 100, there were just 30 female executive directors in 2008 and in 2009 their number dropped to 29.

That’s 29 out of 523 or roughly 5%.

The number of women in FTSE 100 companies decreased by 5%.

In the FTSE 250, out of 950 executive directors, there are only 39 women.

The House of Commons Treasury Select Committee published a report stipulating that the lack of women in financial companies made the scrutiny of executive decisions less effective in the run-up to the crisis.

Peter Newhouse, a pay consultant explained that less than 10% of the directors of the FTSE 350 companies are women but that the situation was even worse than it seemed.

80% of female directors in FTSE 100 boardrooms hold non-executive positions.

Possible explanations

Nichola Pease, head of JO Hambro Asset Management had two controversial explanations.

She stated that there weren’t many women in boardrooms because they didn’t want to be there.

She also declared that it was a “commercial reality” that some high-paying jobs demanded a time commitment that women were not prepared to make and that maternity leave was too long.

An obvious gap in salary

Linda Cook, executive director at Royal Dutch Shell, topped the list of the best paid women with 7.5 million pounds.

Dame Majorie Scardino, chief executive of Pearson was the runner-up, earning 4.9 million pounds.

With a total package of £186, 751, Saila Miettinen-Lahde, finance director of Talvivaara Mining Company, made the top 50 list.

On the other hand, Bart Becht, chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser made 92.6 million pounds in 2009.

His runner-up, Tony Pidgley of Berkeley group was paid 36.4 million pounds.

The Telegraph