Fintech firms falling behind FTSE 100 firms on boardroom diversity with less than one in ten female directors
Fintech firms may be leading the City when it comes to developing financial innovations, but when it comes to boardroom diversity, they’re falling far behind.
The UK’s top 50 fintech firms have just nine per cent women on their boards, research by recruitment firm Astbury Marsden reveals.
This makes them three times less diverse than Britain’s blue-chip firms. With 25 per cent female directors, there is no longer a single FTSE 100-listed firm without any women at all on board.
By contrast, more than two-thirds, or 69 per cent, of the UK’s top fintech firms have all-male boards.
Adam Jackson, managing director at Astbury Marsden, was unimpressed, saying that as the fintech sector continues to expand rapidly, this would be a good time to redress the imbalance:
Given that a well-balanced board is now widely seen as essential, with stakeholders increasingly expecting to see companies focussing on diversity, the fintech industry needs to be seen to do more.
Research has shown a clear correlation between diversity and business results, with diverse boards outperforming all-male boards by £430bn in the US, UK and India last year.
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The number of women on FTSE 100 boards has more than doubled in the past four years, since the Davies Review was launched to tackle the issue.
Since firms reached their voluntary 25 per cent target late last year, the review has set a new goal of having women on one third of board seats by 2020, and also stresses the need to increase the numbers of female executives.
Today, just 25 of 267 current executives of FTSE 100 firms are women.