EU proposals for more female directors

With female directors still only making up a small percentage of top company boards, different countries are taking different approaches to redress the balance. They may be even forced to make changes. According to the BBC’s Robert Peston on his BBC blog, the European Commission's female Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship commissioner ‘ wants to see a mandatory increase in female representation on boards: 30% of big companies directors to be women by 2015 and 40% by 2020.’ In Britain, a government report called for 25% of the boards of FTSE companies to be female but all change is on a voluntary basis. Some countries, however, such as France have already introduced legislation ‘requiring 20% of directors of listed French companies to be women by 2014 and 40% by 2017.’ For more details and analysis of how such potential legislation could affect British companies and employment read Robert Peston’s full report at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17257124