Thursday 4 August 2011

Gender diversity on UK Boards - raising the stakes

Becoming a meatier story by the week, the efforts of city headhunters to begin the (necessary?) positive discrimination to up the numbers of women on boards may or may not have the desired effect by the time the Davies committee reports in October.

Supplemented by the Home Office's memo this week that they are expecting more action to achieve the "25% by 2015" targets, it has all the hallmarks of a badly driven juggernaut. The quote "It's about improving performance and having a board that reflects and understands its customers" I found particularly grotesque (offensive to both sexes I would suggest - "Greedy Man" needs empathy lessons from "Lovely Lady").

From the Solvency II angle, this would be much better parked as a requirement in the Corporate Governance Code a.s.a.p, as the Fit and Proper requirements on the Level 2 & 3s are shooting at hard skill sets, so there may need to be some promoting done in UK insurers to get to 25% with sufficient hard skills by 2014/15

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