The People Bulletin

Alison Cooper has been confirmed chief executive officer of Imperial Tobacco having served just over a year as chief operating officer. She succeeds the incumbent Gareth Davis, who is retiring after 13 years and joins Katherine Garrett-Cox, CEO of Alliance Trust as one of only two British female FTSE 100 CEOs.

A report by Ruth Sunderland in The Observer on 2 May 2010 highlights that leading UK companies are ignoring British female candidates for boardroom posts and hiring women from overseas.[1]  The article quotes Cranfield’s Female FTSE 100 report published each November[2]. Professor Susan Vinnicombe, who heads up Cranfield’s International Centre for Women Leader, says that she thinks British women are suffering from the ‘two box’ syndrome: ‘companies are very conscious of diversity and an overseas female candidate covers two bases at once. There are more than 2000 women in the pipeline for FTSE 100 directorships – why do we have to look overseas?’

The lack of women in the top government jobs has been apparent, although things are better than they were. The Attorney General, the Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC observes: ‘the gender balance is [now] very different. When I started, women were in the minority, and black women were rarer still, and there was a presumption that you were less likely to be able to succeed. I was told that I had two impediments: one was that I was black, one was that I was female. That is not so much the case today as it was before.[3]'

The Cranfield report revealed that he number of companies with female executive directors had fallen from 16 to 15, and the number of boards with multiple women directors has fallen to 37 from 39. It counted 113 women holding 131 FTSE 100 directorships compared to 834 men holding 947 directorships.  It also noted there were only four female FTSE 100 CEOs, down from five the previous year.  Ms Cooper’s appointment brings the total back up to five.

Harriet Harman, Minister for Equality and Women, said: ‘When I drew up the Female FTSE Report in 1999, it was clear there was a lack of women in boardrooms. This report shows that we are moving in the right direction and there is still much more that needs to be done. Businesses that run on the basis of an old boy network and do not draw on the talents of all the population will not be the ones that flourish and prosper in the 21st century.’

[1] www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/01/british-female-executives-cranfield-university-school-management

[2] The most recent one can be viewed at: www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/ftse 

[3] www.barcouncil.org.uk/CareersHome/ProfileLibrary/AttorneyGeneralTheRightHonourableBaronessScotlandQC/