Ackermann's 'colourful' remark stirs debate - Building Gender Balanced Business

With concern over the severe lack of female representation in the boardrooms of Germany’s largest corporations ever-growing, Deutsche Bank chief executive Josef Ackermann draws criticism by commenting that appointing women to the top levels of management would make it “more colourful and more beautiful too.”

Last month a government minister suggested that quotas may need to be created to force German companies to put women in management positions

Ackermann was attempting to defend Deutsche Bank’s gender diversity when he made the comment, which was criticized by notable German women from the business and political arenas

“Whoever wants things more colourful and beautiful should go to a flower meadow or a museum.”

— Ilse Aigner, Minister for Consumer Affairs

In 2010, only 2.2 per cent of the executive board members in Germany’s Dax index were women

None of Germany’s 80 largest companies by stock market capitalization has a female chief executive

In response to these troubling statistics, investors and regulators have been pressuring companies to make gender diversity a priority

Ackermann said that he is very interested in having women in senior roles and that Deutsche Bank has run programs to promote gender diversity

Approximately 17 per cent of the bank’s managing director level staff is female, though 45 per cent of all staff is female

Click here to read the full article in the Financial Times