Liontrust and AJ Bell highlighted for all-male executive committees in final Hampton-Alexander Review
Almost one third of FTSE 100 companies have not met the 33% target of women on boards set out in the Hampton-Alexander Review, while the number of females in CEO and financial director positions remains “stubbornly low”.
Concluding the five-year review, Sir Philip Hampton said there has been “enormous progress” with the number of women on FTSE boards increasing by 50% over the past five years, there are still “a few serious laggards” where diversity is limited.
“There is,” he wrote, “a continuing challenge in the proportion of senior women executives on boards, since they represent only 14% of the executive directors in the FTSE 100, for example. The proportion of women executives on executive committees is also relatively low, around a quarter, despite progress in recent years.”
Women on boards
As previously mentioned, 36.2% or 68 of the FTSE 100 index companies have now met or exceeded the 33% target, up from 32.4% in 2019. This encompasses 374 women on FTSE 100 boards out of a total of 1,032 directorships, with 34 women in either the chair and senior independent director role.
The review noted companies such as St James’s Place, Tio Tinto and Smiths Group “substantially” increased the representation of women on boards in the final year, while M&G was also included in the top ten companies that had 50% gender balance on the board.
“The key drivers of progress are the turnover rate and the appointment rate of women, both of which have increased by around 4% this year and are at the highest yet,” the review said. “In particular, the appointment rate of 39% is helping fuel faster progress. The number of women in chair and senior independent director roles continues to increase, with three more women to take up chair roles in the coming month