Gender balance on the FTSE 100

Who Managers Women Execs: Gender balance on the FTSE 100

Slow but steady progress

Katherine Garrett-Cox, CEO,
Alliance Trust

The full data for the number of women on the boards of the FTSE 100 companies is now available in the latest report from Cranfield.

in 1998, when the report started, there were 66 women on FTSE 100 boards. Today the figure has increased to 131. A modest improvement!

The most meaningful data, say Cranfield, is that 39 companies now have two or more women on their boards. However, there are still 22 companies with all-male boards.

The top three companies in terms of the number of women on their boards are the Alliance Trust, AMEC and Marks & Spencer.

The Alliance Trust has a gender balance of 43% on its board with three women directors. AMEC’s balance is 33% with two female board directors and Mark & Spencer’s balance is also 33% in its case with three female board directors.

The full report can be accessed by clicking here here.

GENDER BALANCE AT THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE LEVEL
The report also reveals the state of play at the executive committee level, where increasing numbers of women are appearing.

The top ten companies in terms of the number of women on their executive committee are listed below. It goes from a very healthy gender balance of 44.4% at Lloyds TSB down to 26.7% at the Admiral Group.

Interestingly, the Alliance Trust (the overall winner of the ranking in terms of the number of women on its board) shares the number ten position with the Admiral Group with a 26.6% gender balance on its executive committee.

This is covered in more detail below where we look at the five FTSE 100 companies run by women CEOs to see how they have performed relative to the other companies.

Best balanced executive committees

The top ten ranked companies in the FTSE 100

The table below shows the companies which have appointed the most female directors to their executive committees.

Rank	Co.	Female execs/ dxs*	Size EC**	% females
1	Lloyds TSB	4	9	44.4%
2	WPP	13	32	40.6%
3	Next	8	20	40.0%
3	BUNZL	2	5	40.0%
3	SHIRE	4	10	40.0%
3	BHP Billiton	2	5	40.0%
7	London Stock Exchange	3	8	37.5%
8	RSA Insurance Group	4	11	36.4%
9	Sainsbury	4	12	33.3%
10	Admiral Group	4	15	26.7%
10	Alliance Trust	4	15	26.7%

Notes: *Female execs/dxs: refers to female executive directors, senior directors and company secretaries, all of whom sit on the executive committee

**EC: Executive committee

How do the Women CEOs do?

We have drawn together below the five companies which have female CEOs in the FTSE 100 list to show how many female directors they have appointed to their boards and executive committees.

The results are quite varied. Overall, the investment company Alliance Trust comes out well with a gender balance of 43% on its board and a little under 30% on its executive committee.

Its CEO, Katherine Garnett-Cox was appointed into her present position at the end of August 2008. So at the time of this report, she has had only two months in the CEO job – not enough time to make any appreciable impact on the board or executive committee structure.

The London Stock Exchange under the leadership of Dame Clara Furse does well in regard to its gender balance of 37.5% on its executive committee. Other than that, the figures are reasonable but seem to be in line with the average trend in the UK and Europe.

In conclusion, therefore, all that can be said is that of the FTSE 100 companies run by women CEOs, they have all made the top 50 out of 100 in terms of the number of women on their boards and executive committee with one exception. That is the mining company Anglo American which is ranked at 56 for the number of women on its executive committee. Perhaps, this is not surprising given the macho nature of the industry. Having got a woman CEO caused a stir in itself, with many people in the industry seemingly surprised that a woman had been chosen.

Company	CEO	No. of women on the board	% females on the board	Rank	No. of women on EC	% females on EC	Rank
Alliance Trust	Katherine Garrett- Cox	3	43%	1	4	26.7%	4
Pearson	Dame Marjorie Scardino	3	23%	10	2	18.2%	24
Anglo American	Cynthia Carroll	2	17%	26	1	12.5%	56
Drax Group	Dorothy Thompson	1	14%	30	1	12.5%	38
London Stock Exchange	Dame Clara Furse	2	17%	26	3	37.5%	7