There has been a lot of talk about the successes women have seen in business, but are those trends really stalling? The Australian recently mentioned a comment by Meg Whitman, the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, about women in the boardroom.
“Women made tremendous gains in the 70s, 80s and 90s,” said Ms Whitman. “But the last decade has not been great. We are now almost at critical mass at the business schools and law schools. So what is driving this flatline?”
Ms Whitman’s concerns highlight statistics that show the lack of diversity at leading businesses.
A study conducted for Britain’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills this year showed that 12.5 per cent of members of the boardrooms of FTSE 100 companies were women.
The study said: “At the current rate of change it will take over 70 years to achieve gender-balanced boardrooms in the UK.”
The British figures are broadly in line with those of American businesses. In October, the not-for-profit group Catalyst found that women held just 14 per cent of senior executive positions at Fortune 500 companies.
The number has barely increased since 2005. At the time, Ilene Lang, chief executive of Catalyst, blamed “entrenched sexism” at the top of leading companies as a factor.
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