Jump to: Female FTSE Board Report | Women to Watch list | Women leaders | Race and ethnicity | Disability
Female FTSE Board Report
In 1996, only 6.7% of board members of FTSE 100 companies were women. Although it was widely recognised that there was a gender imbalance at the senior management and leadership level, there was a lack of information available to help and encourage business and Government to redress the balance.
Cranfield’s annual Female FTSE Board Report was launched in 1999 to provide a regular measure of the number of women directors on the corporate boards of the UK’s top companies. Since then, we have firmly established the business case for increased gender diversity on corporate boards and have been instrumental in increasing representation and the effective participation of women at the highest levels of UK business.
Working closely with the likes of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Government Equalities Office, the CBI, the Financial Reporting Council, FTSE-listed companies and leading professional service firms, our work has fed into Government led initiatives to set and meet targets for female representation on FTSE boards through the and .
Case studies
Gender diversity and financial performance
Gender diversity and corporate decision-making
Women to Watch list
Produced as a supplement to the Female FTSE Board Report, Cranfield’s annual Women to Watch list aims to highlight the vast pool of leading female professionals available for and ideally suited to positions on the boards of FTSE 350 companies, inspiring executive search firms, FTSE Board chairs and other directors to look at gender diversity in a different way.
Introduced in 2009, it aims to challenge assumptions about the type of woman suited to a board position, showcasing senior women across sectors to show that board members need not necessarily have a finance, legal, banking or professional services background.
Women leaders
Cranfield School of Management has a long-standing, world-renowned reputation for research, executive development and influence at the highest levels of industry and Government on the subject of women in leadership.
Our research in this area focuses on organisational solutions to the lack of women in leadership positions and the impact that women on corporate boards have in improving gender diversity below board level.
Race and ethnicity
Data from the 2011 Census shows around 7.9 million people in England and Wales identified as being from a minoritised ethnic group including Asian, Indian, Pakistani, Black African, Black Caribbean and of Mixed Ethnicity.
At Cranfield, we believe businesses have a duty to reflect the society they serve at all levels. Underrepresented groups need their voices to be heard at senior level and deserve role models that they can aspire to.
Representation at a senior level has been shown to have a positive impact on minority ethnic talent throughout all levels of an organisation. But representation alone is not enough – people from minority ethnic groups must be able to fully participate in, contribute to and influence an organisation’s day-to-day operations and strategic agenda.
Supporting diverse talent requires businesses to create inclusive cultures that understand and appreciate individual races and ethnicities, and to establish flexible talent pathways that enable ethnic minorities at all levels within the business to thrive.
By increasing board-level and executive accountability for equality, diversity and inclusion and building inclusive leadership and cultures, organisations will have everything they need to ensure an ethnically-balanced pipeline of talent for years to come.
Our research into racial and ethnic diversity has encompassed looking at how inclusive organisations are fostered and how individuals experience inclusion or exclusion at work. We have worked with the likes of the Equality and Human Rights Commission on investigations into the effectiveness of current ED&I initiatives, as well as with UK Government as members of the steering committee and advisory group for the Parker Review which seeks to promote senior level ethnic diversity in the UK.
Disability
There are some 386 million disabled employees around the world, and more than 4.2 million in the UK. Conservative estimates suggest around 10% of any workforce will be disabled, the majority of them (83%) having acquired an impairment during their working life.
In 2021, the disability employment rate was just 52.7%, compared to 81% for non-disabled people. Disabled workers moved out of work at nearly twice the rate of non-disabled workers (8.8%, compared to 4.9%), while workless disabled people moved into work at nearly one third (11%) of the rate of workless non-disabled people (26.9%) (Source: www.gov.uk).
Disabled people are also underrepresented in the everyday images around us, appearing in less than 2% of images in the media. When they are represented, it is often against a narrative of incapacity and deficit, where they are positioned as ‘vulnerable’ or ‘sick’ or, at the other end of the spectrum, as superheroes inspiring everyone with their ‘achievements’.
Traditional models tend to position disability as an individual, medical condition or problem that needs to be prevented, cured or managed, focusing on a functional analysis of the body as a machine which needs to be ‘fixed’. We believe people with impairments are also ‘disabled’ by the barriers operating in society that exclude and discriminate against them. These barriers may be attitudinal (social and cultural), physical (linked to the physical and built environment), or relate to information and communication.
We believe that the challenges that result in people with certain impairments being disabled by society can be solved through better organisational support and anticipatory planning, and by building more inclusive and understanding workplace cultures.
Our research in this area seeks to understand the relationship between how disability identity is developed and managed, organisational culture, corporate communications, and the influence of factors like stigma and ableism. We hope to use our findings to contribute to improving outcomes for disabled people and organisations alike.
