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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Business schools play a major role in the Gender Balance in firms in the EU

A meeting between the heads of major business schools in the EU and Viviane Reding, the European Commission for Justice, led to an interesting debate on the increasing importance of women in business.Despite around 60% of university graduates being female, women still represent only 12% of board members in Europe's biggest listed companies and only 3% of board presidents. Business schools play a crucial role in equipping young women for a career in business and helping them to reach the top. They are helping women to prepare for professional careers through seminars, training programmes and providing networking opportunities. Their initiatives follow Vice-President Reding's call to companies to pledge to voluntarily increase the number of women on corporate boards to 30% by 2015 and to 40% by 2020.

Today's meeting brings together deans of European business schools and female business leaders to discuss the role of women in European corporate governance. It is organised by EDHEC business school, the Global Telecom Women's Network (GTWN) and McKinsey & Company.

Background

As Europe's population ages, women are crucial to meeting the Europe 2020 employment target of 75%. Joint efforts by governments, social partners and businesses are needed to improve the status quo.

Only 12% of members of the supervisory boards at Europe's largest companies are women and in 97% of cases the board is chaired by a man. Progress over the past years has been very slow: the share of female board members in the EU has increased by just over half a percentage point per year over the last seven years. At this rate, unless action is taken, it will take another 50 years before there is a reasonable gender balance (at least 40% of each sex) on supervisory boards. In the meantime, publicly-listed firms in the EU keep losing out on female talent.

On 1 March, EU Justice Commissioner Reding met chief executives and chairs of boards of publicly listed companies to discuss the under-representation of women on corporate boards. She challenged all publicly listed companies in Europe to sign up to the "Women on the Board Pledge for Europe" and commit voluntarily to increasing women's participation on corporate boards to 30% by 2015 and to 40% by 2020.

The “Women Boardroom Pledge” is available on Vice-President Reding's website. It will help monitor how companies are working towards getting more women in top jobs. Every publicly listed company can sign the pledge and lead with a good example. In March 2012, the European Commission will re-assess the situation to see whether there has been significant progress and whether credible self-regulatory initiatives were developed to enhance women's participation in decision-making. Based on the results, the Commission will then decide on the next steps to be taken.

Source  Press room - European Commission

More information  Press room - European Commission

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