Less than 6 per cent of top West Midlands firms have female directors
New research by The Birmingham Post shows women are all but invisible in the boardrooms of the region’s top 50 listed companies. Anna Blackaby reports
Female executive and non-executive board members make up just 5.9 per cent of the decision-making clout of the region’s leading firms, placing West Midland women directors in an even bigger minority than at national level where they make up only 11.7 per cent of FTSE 100 boards.
And two out of three of the region’s boardrooms – 62 per cent – are men-only areas, according to The Post’s analysis of the biggest quoted companies in the West Midlands by turnover.
Following the recent departure of the region’s highest-profile female listed company board member, former Birmingham City Football Club chief executive Karren Brady, anyone looking for women holding top positions has to go a long way from the urban centres to find them.
The only female chairman in the companies surveyed is at the helm of Leek-based fashion firm Slimma – Carolyn Simons – and direct marketing firm DM, based in Ross on Wye, has a female operations director – Wendy Ruck.
Not one chief executive in any of the firms analysed is a woman.
Conservative MP for Meriden Caroline Spelman branded the figures “terrible”.
