Sexist bosses who say women aren’t f it to run top companies

TOP executives are using ‘pitiful and patronising’ excuses to keep women out of boardrooms, a report claims.

FTSE company chiefs have claimed women ‘don’t want the hassle’ of top jobs and can’t deal with ‘ complex issues’.

The report, backed by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has now published a list of the worst culprits after it emerged ten of the UK’s biggest firms lacked a single female board member.

Among the excuses from business leaders were ‘I don’t think women fit comfortably into the board environment’ and ‘ most women don’t want the hassle or pressure of sitting on a board’.

Another sexist boss said: ‘There aren’t that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board – the issues covered are extremely complex’.

A further executive complained: ‘ All the good women have already been snapped up.’

Sir Philip Hampton, who is leading a review into gender representation at the top levels of FTSE firms, said boards need to ‘step up to the plate’ or face punishment in future.

Theresa May has already called for women to make up at least a third of board members at every FTSE 350 company by 2020. The review was commissioned by the Government in 2016 to find ways of closing the gender gap in business.

While the number of all-male boards have fallen from 152 to ten over the last six years, Sir Philip warned that some bosses are still refusing to move with the times. Both Sports Direct, founded by tycoon Mike Ashley, and haulage business the Stobart Group are among the workplaces with no female board members. Mr Ashley has been hit by a string of controversies in recent years, including paying his staff less than the minimum wage. Without action, Sir Philip warned that senior positions will be monopolised by

‘Not a proper meritocracy’

white men and that the Prime Minister’s targets may not be realised by the 2020 deadline.

He told The Daily Telegraph: ‘A lot of companies are not showing the rate of progress we expect. Around a third of FTSE 350 companies still have very few women either on their boards or in senior leadership roles. I think almost always it’s white men who are at the top, and my sense is that there is an expectation growing up that senior positions will be occupied by white men. It’s not a basis for the identification and management of a proper meritocracy.

‘The notion that any portion of our leadership should be permanently inhabited by men is wrong. We’ve got to do more at the appropriate pace. We can’t wait for people’s lives to go past. There’s a lot of work to do.’

The chief executive of the review, Denise Wilson, said there were ‘ pockets of sexism’ in boardrooms.

She said: ‘[There are] very unhelpful myths... that women don’t aspire in the same way that men do. Actually we don’t find that at all. There is not a lack of senior women capable and willing to take on these big jobs. They just don’t get picked in the same way as the men are.

‘We have about 100 companies in the FTSE 350, including these ten all-male boards, who are being very slow.

‘They appoint one woman to their board maybe and are just not understanding the importance of diversity. They are just paying lip service to it.’

Sir Philip said it was ‘a matter for Government’ whether companies are fined.

Business minister Andrew Griffiths said: ‘It’s shocking that some businesses think these pitiful and patronising excuses are acceptable reasons to keep women from the top jobs.

‘Thankfully, there has been great progress in recent years and through our modern industrial strategy and the review we are determined that everyone has an equal opportunity to reach the top.’