Gender balance in boardroom still has long way to go

A new report on global diversity in the boardroom from INAC, the international network of executive search consultancies, has found that while progress on the gender divide is being made – only 5% of the world’s largest corporations are women.

In the US, which could feasibly see a female President in the not too distant future, only 17% of Fortune 500 board seats are held by women.

In Latin America, only 28% of companies have a gender equality policy at executive level. In Australia, while there are no formal targets, almost a quarter of directors the top 50 ASX listed companies are female and every single one has female directors on the board. 

There are some interesting anomalies. Turkey is among the top 15 countries in the world for female board members although it still fell behind its European counterparts when it came to the percentage of women participating in the workforce. This was due mainly to the high number of female entrepreneurs running micro businesses.

And while Norway is often seen as one of the most progressive countries, having implemented boardroom quotas in 2003, the number of female CEOs in the region is still very small.

View the full report here.