The Guardian has reported that nearly half of small companies outside the FTSE 350 have under a third of board roles occupied by women, with three-quarters entirely white.
Half of the smaller 252 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange have no female executive leaders such as chief executives and chief financial officers despite the push for boardroom diversity, research shows.
Nearly half of these smaller firms are also missing the target of having a third of their board roles occupied by women, and three-quarters of their boards are entirely white.
Campaign group Women on Boards UK analysed diversity at listed companies on the LSE that are too small for the FTSE 350 All-Share index of the largest companies traded in London. Its second annual report found that 50% of these smaller firms have all-male leadership teams.
That is down from 54% last year but still “shockingly high” when compared with companies in the FTSE 350 (which includes the blue-chip FTSE 100) where only 4.6% have all-male executive leadership teams, the group said.
Only 16% of board chairs at the smaller 252 companies are women, and even fewer chief executives, just 7%, are female – signalling no change since 2021.
This matters because companies with female CEOs have significantly more women on their executive leadership teams than those run by men. Female CEOs had an average of 55% representation of women on their executive leadership teams, versus 14% for the companies with male CEOs.
The report shows that women have made some small gains in the boardroom in the last 12 months, with 34% female board directors at the smaller 252 firms, up from 31% in 2021.
Companies that stand out in a positive way include the fashion chain Ted Baker with a female chief executive, Rachel Osborne, and a female interim chair, Helena Feltham; the bus operator Go-Ahead whose chair, Clare Hollingsworth, and chief financial officer, Sarah Mussenden, are both women; and Metro Bank, where five of 11 board roles are occupied by women.
