IMF boss Christine Lagarde: The world needs more women with top jobs in finance May 6, 2015 The bad culture in banking is still not fixed, and more women at the top of the industry could help, International Monetary Fund boss Christine Lagarde said yesterday. “Several studies have shown that female leadership is more inclusive,” she told an audience in Washington DC. “You may be familiar with a question I have posed in the [...]
Chuka Umunna says corporate boardrooms need more diversity April 20, 2015 Chuka Umunna would aim for Britain’s boardrooms to have at least 14 per cent BME members if Labour win the General Election, “We have got to go further and look at not just gender diversity but ethnic diversity in British business leadership,” the shadow business secretary told the Evening Standard yesterday. Over half of the UK’s [...]
Gender equality has become an election issue – but progress remains painfully slow April 20, 2015 Gender equality has been highlighted as an important electoral issue in the political manifestos. All of the main parties want to see better conditions at work for women and they welcomed progress on female representation on boards – vouching to do more, though shying away from embracing quotas. But what is holding women back when [...]
Japan Inc remains a man’s world – but that might finally be changing April 15, 2015 Learners of Japanese soon run into the phrase “shou ga nai”. Roughly translated as “it can’t be helped”, it neatly sums up a fatalistic philosophy in tune with a nation beset by earthquakes, tsunami, volcanoes and typhoons. Until recently, Japan’s record on gender equality also fell into the “shou ga nai” category. Even with a [...]
Top companies now firing fewer chief executives as share of female bosses edges up April 13, 2015 The biggest firms in the world are opting to plan for their bosses’ successions rather than firing them in a panic, a new report has claimed. According to research from PwC consultancy Strategy&, when firms perform poorly and fire the chief executive, the uncertainty unleashed by the change at the top can lead to a [...]
Investment bankers lead City workers in favouring diversity April 12, 2015 Investment banking staff are the most convinced of all City workers of the benefits of workplace diversity. Workplace diversity was rated as important or very important by 59 per cent of investment bankers, according to survey figures released today by recruiters Astbury Marsden. “Investment banks pride themselves on being fiercely meritocratic – they will take [...]
Why empowering all women is key to sustained change in the boardroom April 8, 2015 For A topic that attracts so much attention, there’s a surprising dearth of academic research into the rise of women to the boardroom, and particularly the conditions that enable (or inhibit) women’s progression globally. The literature tends to be focused on single countries (80 per cent on the US), on the controversial topic of quotas, [...]
Why women on boards are good for business March 25, 2015 Yesterday’s release of the latest government report into gender diversity on the boards of the UK’s biggest companies brought some excellent news for those businesses, the broader economy and society. Four years on from the original survey, Lord Davies finds that female representation has almost doubled to 23.5 per cent, and only 17 more women [...]
Why transparency over pay is vital if we’re to reach gender equality March 11, 2015 Good news can sometimes feel like a rarity, but recent PwC data shows that the UK has improved its position in an international league table of female participation in the workplace, moving up four places to fourteenth in a ranking of the 27 OECD economies. It’s a welcome improvement, but there is still some way [...]
FTSE 100 women dine with Vince Cable in bid to highlight female representation on boards March 10, 2015 Vince Cable last night welcomed more than 100 women from the business world to a dinner at Lancaster House, in a bid to convince sceptics that top companies are improving the female representation on their boards. The business secretary’s department says the target of having 25 per cent of FTSE 100 board positions held by [...]