Women in the boardroom show slight gain

The increase in female representation on the boards of the largest publicly-listed companies in the European Union increased by 6.7 percentage points between October 2010 and April 2014, but only by 2.1 percentage points in Ireland.

The latest data from the European Commission on the subject of female representation at the top of the corporate world shows that just 3.3 per cent of the chief executives of the largest listed corporations in the union, are female.

The level of female representation at the highest executive level has hardly changed over the past three years, the commission said today.

On average, only 18.6 per cent of board members of the largest plcs are women, despite 60 per cent of university graduates in the EU being female.

“Not taking advantage of the skills of highly qualified women constitutes a waste of talent and a loss of economic growth potential,” the commission said.

Two years’ ago the commission proposed a directive establishing a minimum 40 per cent quota from each sex amongst non-executive directors by 2020. In 2013 the European Parliament voted to back the proposed directive, which is currently being discussed by the Council of the EU.