More women needed on company boards, says peer

UK boardrooms are over-populated by men and companies must do more to recognise the part women play in business, Lord Davies, the former minister of state for Trade Promotion and Investment, said in a report published last week.

The peer's report on diversity in the boardroom recommended a fifth of directors in FTSE350 companies should be women by 2013, with this rising to a quarter by 2015.

According to the Cranfield School of Management, only 12 per cent of directors on the boards of FTSE100 companies are female, despite women making up almost half of the UK's total workforce.

Prime Minister David Cameron was set to warn companies last week they would have to improve on the number of female board members in situ, or else the government would be forced to legislate and impose quotas.

Currently the six largest publicly-listed pub companies have a total of seven female board members between them.

JD Wetherspoon tops the league table with three - Su Cacioppo, the pub operator's personnel and legal director and non-executives Elizabeth McMeikan and Debra van Gene.

Wetherspoon spokesman Eddie Gershon said: "Wetherspoon chooses its board members on the strength of their skills and ability and not their sex. All the women working within this organisation do a fantastic job and we are proud that so many women choose to work for the company."

Enterprise Inns has an independent non-executive director in the form of Susan Murray, who combines her duties with her chairmanship of top-end paint manufacturer Farrow & Ball.

Punch Taverns records Karen Caddick as being on the senior management team as director of human resources, although she does not have a seat on the main board.

Marston's, the Midlands-based brewer, cites Rosalind Cuschieri as a non-executive director, while Greene King, its Suffolk counterpart, names Jane Scriven as a non-executive.

Mitchells & Butlers, which runs brands including the O'Neills Irish bar chain and All Bar One, is the only top six listed pub operator not to have a female board member.

Lynne D'Arcy, managing director of Chorley-based and privately-owned Trust Inns, is the only female pubco boss in the UK.

A recently published report from the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) stated nearly three-quarters of women said they still faced barriers to top-level promotion in the UK.