Over two-thirds of senior executive roles in the FTSE 100 go to men, according to analysis by Russell Reynolds Associates.
The executive talent firm found that just 12 companies in the FTSE 100 have a gender-balanced C-suite, and 13 have either one or no women in the top level of executive roles.
A quarter of these businesses are led by executive committees with fewer than 25% women and just 32% of senior executives overall are women.
Female representation is lower in executive roles than on boards, where women hold 42% of board seats in FTSE 100 companies.
Russell Reynolds looked at C-suite roles including chief financial officer, chief operating officer and senior leaders with P&L responsibility, running business units, regions or lines of business.
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Women are far more likely to be in positions without P&L responsibility such as chief human resources officer, chief marketing officer or general counsel, it found. FTSE 100 CHROs are overwhelmingly women, at 79%.
When compared to the UK population, the data shows that women are underrepresented in executive positions by 61%. There are 28% more male executives in leadership teams than there are in the UK population.
That said, UK performance on gender parity at senior level fares better than in the US, where women make up only 29% of executive positions in Standard & Poor’s 100 companies.
In 2021, the final report of the Hampton-Alexander review into women on boards showed that the number of female directors in the FTSE 100 hit 33% in December 2020, so there has been an improvement.
Laura Sanderson, co-head of Europe, Middle East & India at Russell Reynolds said that boards needed to take active steps to manage their talent pipelines to improve representation in executive, decision-making roles.
“Establishing a cohort of skilled women leaders needs to be treated as a business imperative as it supports all aspects of a firm’s performance.
“The evidence is mounting that companies with gender-balanced senior leadership teams are more innovative, more profitable, more socially responsible, and provide higher-quality customer experiences.
“At its core, achieving gender balance in business leadership is an indicator of organisations’ succession and talent planning success.”
Last month, the annual Women Count survey’s analysis of the FTSE 350 found that female representation on executive committees had fallen to 32%, with just 19% of commercial executive roles filled by women.
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