Sister act

Matthew Lynn

26 February 2011

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Passing an equality law to put more women in the boardroom would be a silly mistake

Josef Ackermann is something of a rarity in big business these days. Speculating last month on the possibility of a woman one day joining his board, the Deutsche Bank chief executive remarked that she might make it ‘more colourful and prettier’. Despite howls of outrage from the sisterhood — or the Schwesternschaft, as they are somewhat scarily called in Germany — what was interesting about the banker’s casual sexism was how odd it sounded rather than how ordinary. Most CEOs these days would rather boast about how their factories pumped millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere than make any remark that could be construed as disparaging to women.

What until recently seemed the last bastion of male power, the boardroom, has in the last few years started to fall to feminism. Across Europe, laws and quotas are demanding that female directors are appointed as often as male ones. The French have just passed a law that will set minimum quotas for listed companies: the 2,500 largest businesses will be forced to have 20 per cent women on their boards by 2012, and 40 per cent by 2016. The Spanish already have a quota law, and so do the Norwegians. The Germans — still reeling from Ackermann’s Don Draper moment — are considering one. And now it looks as if we might join them.

This week, Lord Davies delivered his report to the government on increasing women’s role in the boardroom. Although he will stop short of mandatory quotas, he is likely to set a target of 20 per cent female directors for FTSE 350 companies by 2013 and 25 per cent by 2015. If it isn’t met, don’t be surprised if we follow much of the rest of Europe in imposing a legal requirement for companies to have a set number of women on their board.

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