Four out of five top firms have never had a female chief executive, report finds

Four out of five companies across the FTSE 100 and S&P 100 have never had a female chief executive, as boards fail to promote them into positions of power earlier in their career, a new report has found.

Across the two nations, 80 per cent of firms have never had a women lead the company, according to the latest tracker from Women in Work, despite many being appointed to board roles.

Just 38 out of 200 companies across the two indexes have appointed a female chief executive since 1997, half which have recorded appointments in the last ten years.

While appointments have accelerated in the past decade, just nine companies in London’s top index currently have a female chief executive including BP, Aviva and Vodafone.

Pavita Cooper, chair of the 30% Club UK, said these figures are not due to a lack of talent among women in corporate, but instead a failure among companies to promote them into “power roles”.

“This gap is not about talent, it’s a promotion gap. There are not enough women being promoted up into the jobs from which you can succeed to be CEO,” said Cooper.

“The problem…they’re not in what we call power roles. They’re not in the divisional jobs. They’re not running all the canned foods for Unilever, they’re not running the biggest part of the bank for Barclays.”

Mid-career pipeline leak

Cooper argued the gap appears during the middle of a women’s career, as progress into senior operational roles can be stalled by time taken out of employment.

Between the age of 35 and 44, 70 per cent of women step out of the workplace for caring responsibilities, according to findings from Octopus Money, despite it typically being the period many find their earnings and career progression peaking.

Cooper said: “Between the age of 30 to 40, when most people are having to really lean into that key point in their career, women are also raising families.

“And then, for women who are kind of getting to that very top job… you’ll have kids about to go to university, you might be caring for your own parents.”

Cooper also called out “the ambush” of return to office mandates which are sweeping the City despite staff uproars, arguing the loss of flexibility hits parents in particular.

 Last week, Barclays staff revolted against a tightened working from home policy which would see thousands of staff in the Canary Wharf office three days a week.

“Wealthy men on Wall Street telling women they’ve got to go back to the office five days a week isn’t helpful.”

Reaching the top and wider change

Despite the mid-career hurdle, women who break through to become chief executives are able to retain their role for extended periods. 

Former Peason chief Marjorie Scardino stayed in the role for 15 years after her 1997 appointment, while Amanda Blanc, who has been hailed as completing a major turnaround at insurer Aviva, has been in post for six years.

Additionally, companies who have appointed women to the top job are likely to do it again. Burberry, Entertain and London Stock Exchange Group have all hired two women as chief executives. 

But, Cooper noted individual corporate initiatives and awareness of the issue is not enough to plug the mid-career leak, calling for wider “societal” changes.

“The really progressive companies have done all the obvious things they can do. It’s a wider societal shift now. That’s going to require the government to lean into childcare provision and tax breaks.”