Local MP Calls For More Women Executives

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Mary Macleod helps set up group to get rid of barriers in workplace

A project to help get rid of the barriers faced by women in the workplace reaching executive positions has been announced today (Nov 13).

Co-founded by local MP Mary Macleod, the parliamentary group of Conservative politicians will try to discover why there are so few women executives and what steps can be taken to overcome the problems.

The MP for Brentford and Isleworth said that women were still struggling to reach the top, and they wanted to see how they could be helped.

The project will study the effectiveness of quotas and alternative options, but particularly issues which risk being overlooked, such as the low numbers of women in executive positions and leaks in the pipeline of talent.

Mary said: “While the European Commission are suggesting quotas for boards, we feel there are underlying problems which need to be tackled.  We welcome the fact that 55% of non-executive directors appointed since February were women, but 100% of executive appointments were male.  Women are struggling to reach the very top, and we want to see how they can be helped.”

One of the co-founders of the project, Dr Therese Coffey MP, said: “Progress has been made on female board participation recently, but we feel there is much more that can be done: only 6.6% of executive directors of FTSE 100 companies are female, and if you go beyond the biggest companies to the FTSE 250, over a third of boards remain all-male.  We want to speak to companies, their investors, executive search firms, and other members of the business world to understand how we can unlock the talent pool that the women in this country represent.”

The group plan to write to stakeholders, inviting them to give evidence at a number of sessions in the New Year.  A report will be published in the spring.

November 13, 2012