Company boardrooms are still overwhelmingly being run by white men. In a bid to combat the low ethnic diversity, business secretary Vince Cable today launched the 2020 Campaign. The aim is for there to be no FTSE 100 companies with all-white boards by 2020.
But what do the figures look like today?
We analysed the boards of all FTSE 100 companies and found that the gender balance still has some way to go - just 23% of board members are currently women. The ethnic diversity is more dismal still.
According to figures by Green Park Executive recruitment 62% of FTSE 100 boards are all-white. Only 5.25% of board members are from ethnic minorities, compared to 14% in the British population.
The balance is not improving either. According to the 2020 Campaign in fact, the number of minorities on boards has dropped over the past year.
Although the 2020 Campaign plans to improve the ethnic diversity as an aspiration rather than through introducing a binding quota, there is a precedent that simply setting a goal can be effective.
The percentage of women on boards has doubled in the past three years, following a goal introduced by Lord Davies that at least one in four board members be a woman by 2015.
All FTSE 100 companies now have at least one woman on their board. However it is not clear that those successes have made their way through to the very top of the organisations. We took a look at the people listed on corporations’ sites in executive positions and 73% have no women at all.
According to the Green Park figures, 69% have no-one who isn’t white. Just 3% of executives (CEOs, CFOs and chairs) are from ethnic minority backgrounds.
The homogeneity of corporate boardrooms is generally challenged from a moral standpoint, with the argument that diversity is important in and of itself.
Actually, several studies have even shown it to improve corporate performance. And, the companies in the top quartile of ethnic diversity are 30% more likely to have above average financial returns, McKinsey’s “Diversity Matters” shows.
We know that businesses with diversity at their top are more successful,” said business secretary Vince Cable in a statement released on Monday.
