Slowly but surely, the list of FTSE 100 companies with no female boardroom directors is shrinking. A year ago, 21 of them did not have any women directors. By October last year that had fallen to 14. Last month it was 11, when there was a formal review of progress after Lord Davies recommended that the biggest 100 companies should have 25% female board representation by 2015.
Late last month one of the 11 recalcitrants – Aggreko – named the banker Diana Layfield as a non-executive and on Tuesday silver miner Fresnillo appointed María Asunción Aramburuzabala as a non-executive.
Aramburuzabala is the first woman on the board of the company, which was created in 2008 when it was listed on the London stock exchange after being spun out of a Mexican holding company. She is a member of many boards in Mexico, including Grupo Modelo – the Corona brewer founded by her grandfather.
Fresnillo was at pains to point out that she was chosen on merit and not to meet the Davies quotas.
The remaining male-only boards are largely mining companies based outside the UK. One of them, Glencore, is chaired by Simon Murray, who a year ago declared that women were a risk to hire because they get married and become pregnant. Another is Xstrata, which Glencore is attempting to take over in a friendly tie-up. Prime examples of what Davies, the former Standard Chartered bank boss, is up against.
