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Women on boards: What's the real story?

In 2022 the FTSE Women Leaders Review and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) made recommendations to advance women’s representation on boards.

Ideally they suggested that by the end of 2025 all FTSE 350 companies should have at least one woman among the four senior board positions of Chair, Senior Independent Director, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Financial Officer.

If you read the 2023 Spencer Stuart UK Board Index you’ll see that 60% of boards now have at least one woman in these senior board positions. In 2022 only 50% of boards could say the same, so a positive move in the right direction. However looking at these numbers a different way, women still only hold 20% of these senior leadership positions.

Interestingly, there is much more parity between men and women newly joining boards in non executive director roles (NED). Again referring to the 2023 Stuart Spencer UK Board Index we can see that 51% of new NEDs are now women. This has dropped back to 2021 levels, the first year when women outnumbered men taking on new NED roles. The story was better in 2022 with the Index reporting 60% of new NEDs were women.

So why such a difference between womens’ representation as non executive and executive directors?

Of course there are multiple reasons. Sometimes women don’t see themselves as board material; there can be a conscious or subconscious image of what a board member needs to look like; in many sectors there can be a general lack of women in leadership positions throughout organisations; sometimes the catch 22 of women needing to find ways to gain board experience in order to be considered for board roles can also come into play.

Could it also be that for many women this is a choice they make? At this stage in their lives many women feel they need to have more flexibility in order to focus on their complex lives outside of work and manage their own health.

Of course men have complex lives outside of their work too, but it is still all too common for women to take the lead when it comes to family and domestic responsibilities.

Women may well be supporting children and older parents. They may be starting to experience ill health from many years of insufficient attention to their own health and wellbeing. Hormonal changes may be having a significant impact.

Having left the corporate world over 3 years ago and set up my own business, I’ve really appreciated the opportunity to re-evaluate what is important to me, to have more flexibility to mix life and work more interchangeably and to have more control over my own energy.

Sophie Carvin, Confidence Coach, works with career focused women to help them get out of their own way so they no longer play small. She also has collaborative enterprise with Erica Gibbon, Nutritional Therapist, Functional Medic and Coach - Mid Life Thriving.

They work with women in mid life to enable them to improve their mental and physical fitness to be better able to deal with the challenges life throws at them and to have the energy to enjoy life.

Sophie Carvin, Confidence Coach, Deror, www.deror.co.uk