Business Secretary, Vince Cable brought together together many of the 160 women who have been appointed to FTSE100 boards since 2011 for a celebratory event. The celebrations also marked International Women's day which was on 8th March; this emphasises the fundamental preposition of accumulating the amount of women in senior leadership roles.
During the event, the host highlighted the progress of women in FTSE 100 and FTSE 250, as recorded in released figures in October 2014. The statistics showed that female representations on boards in FTSE 100 had increased from 20.7% to 22.8% in March 2014; in FTSE 250, female representation on boards increased from 15.6% to 17.4%. In addition, there were no all-male boards in the FTSE 100. New figures are to be released on 25th March.
These statistics prove the progression of women in this field; it emphasises the important role women have paid in Finance, something which would not have been a conventional career path associated with women if we were to mention this a few decades ago. The statistics also show the increasing opportunities for businesswomen.
Lord Davies of Abersoch suggests, “we must recognise there is much work to do before we achieve true gender parity and it is vital that companies focus on continued progress, increasing in the number of women appointed as executive directors. The evidence shows that companies with balanced boards are able to be more competitive globally.”
Although there are many women who have managed to make a name and place for themselves in the world of finance, something that is equally shocking as well as surprising is the amount of Asian women in the list of CEOs. Currently, there is only one Asian female, Ruby McGregor-Smith, who is the head of a FTSE 250 company.
Ruby McGregor-Smith does not believe being a woman in finance has ever been a disadvantage, however, the questions posed towards her regarding her gender and her work role does agitate her. She states, “I don't understand why being female is any more relevant than your race, disability or age. If we've got challenges on gender the rest is a lot worse. No one has ever asked me about the challenges of race, they've only ever asked me about the challenges of being a female.”
McGregor-Smith joined the outsourcing company Mitie in 2002 and five years later, she was promoted to run it at the age of 44.
Her achievements are commendable and a source of inspiration for those who aspire to acquire such work lineage. However, the lack of Asian women CEOs does make one wonder whether Asian women are lacking behind and why so. Similar to how women have manage to break this mould and have managed to forged forward in finance, there may be possibilities for women of ethnic minority backgrounds to evolve as well.
