Yorkshire Report: Female executives on increase
THE number of female executive directors at Yorkshire’s top 150 companies has grown by almost 30% over the past five years ago, according to BDO’s 2011 Yorkshire Report.
And the overall percentage of female directors including executive and non-executive directors has grown from 7.4% in 2007 to 9.5% in 2011 the research found.
The report, produced by accountants and business advisers BDO, investigated the performance of the region’s top 150 companies.
The number of female executive directors has grown across the firms to 64 from 50 in 2007.
Ian Beaumont, managing partner of the Leeds office of BDOm, said: “For too long Yorkshire’s boardrooms have been missing out on a wealth of expertise that women offer and it’s good news for the region and the wider economy if the gender balance in the boardroom continues to change.”
And taking a look back over the past five years, BDO’s Yorkshire Report reveals that in 2007, the number of male executive directors in Yorkshire’s Top 150 companies stood at 688 but has dipped to 608.
The report has found that for the top 150 companies in the region a focus on the old fashioned virtues of thrift and strong management has helped to keep costs well under control and firmly in check.
With operating profits rising by 50% to £3.5bn and profit after tax almost quadrupling to £1.1bn, the prospect of healthy profits proved to be a motivating factor for the region.
Ian Beaumont, managing partner at BDO in Leeds, said: “The region just knuckled down and got on with it, doing what it does best, working hard. But this hard fought victory was not without casualties. The workforce of the region’s Top 150 companies shrank from 469,000 to 460,000 and wage rises were kept to 1.05 per cent.
“Those at the top of the tree shared the pain too, with average remuneration for directors in these companies down by almost 6%.
“On the other hand, this was also a year when women took a major step forward, with 28% more female executive directors at the top table than in the same period last year.”
The previous edition of the Yorkshire Report in 2010 indicated that women fared better during the recession than men as the percentage of women on the boards of the group businesses rose from six to seven but remained below the FTSE 350 average of nine.
The figures follow recent proposals from the European Commission which could see a ‘say on pay’ introduced across Europe along with potential quotas for the number of women in boardrooms.
Since 2003 when GlaxoSmithKline became the first business to have its pay policies opposed by investors, British companies have been required to put their remuneration policies to a shareholder vote.
A European debate is now asking if companies across the 27 member states should be forced to put their remuneration policies to a vote by shareholders. This would include making disclosure on pay mandatory for both executive and individual directors for the first time in some countries.
