FTSE Women Leaders Review 2023 Report published

The FTSE Women Leaders Review has published its second report on improving gender balance in FTSE leadership. This follows the launch of the Review in November 2021 as a new independent five year review to monitor women representation on boards and in senior management positions of FTSE companies.

The 2023 report highlights progress since the 2022 report and outlines how companies have responded to its four new recommendations adopted in 2021, being:

• 40% of FTSE 350 board and leadership positions should be held by women by the end of 2025;
• FTSE 350 companies should have at least one woman appointed as chair, senior independent director (SID), CEO or CFO by the end of 2025;
• stakeholders should have best-practice guidance or other mechanisms in place to encourage those FTSE 350 companies which have not met the previous 33% targets to do so; and
• the top 50 private companies in the UK by sales should also comply with the recommendations as applicable.

The 2023 report notes:

• the voluntary target of 40% of FTSE 350 board positions being held by women by the end of 2025 has already been met – the figure by the end of 2022 was 40.2% of all FTSE 350 board positions;
• the FTSE 350 is on track to hit the target of 40% of all leadership positions being held by women by the end of 2025, with the percentage standing at 33.5% at the end of 2022 (up from 31.5% at the end of 2021);
• 64 FTSE 100 and 144 FTSE 250 companies have at least one woman in one of the four key leaderships roles (chair, SID, CEO or CFO); and
• 44 of the top 50 private companies in the UK submitted data to the Review, which indicated that the level of women representation in leadership positions amongst these companies is comparable to the level amongst the FTSE 350, but that the situation for board positions lagged behind the FTSE 350 (at 31.8%).

The 2023 report also contains data going back to 2011, setting out the significant progress that has been made in the last 12 years on improving gender diversity in FTSE leadership.