CEO of firm asks why few women are CFOs

ABERDEEN Asset Management chief executive Martin Gilbert has questioned why so few chief financial officers are female.

Speaking ahead of a diversity forum at the Aberdeen Asset Management Ladies Scottish Open, Mr Gilbert highlighted the fact that up to 60 per cent of the intake into the accountancy profession were women and yet only 10 per cent of chief financial officers (CFOs) were female.

“Half of chief executive officers (CEOs) are appointed from having been CFO and only ten per cent of CFOs are women,” he said.

“The chief financial officer is a very women-friendly role. It’s a mystery to me. It’s not like engineering where only 10 per cent of the intake are women. Accountancy is very neutral; I don’t understand where it goes wrong there.”

Ahead of introducing First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to speak at the inaugural Ladies Scottish Open Forum on Female Leadership in Business and Sport, Mr Gilbert revealed that the price of Aberdeen Assets’s commercial property fund was raised by seven per cent yesterday. The fund had been one of several to be suspended after the Brexit vote led a flood of investors to withdraw cash from property funds.

“Redemptions completely slowed down so there’s no need to impose the liquidity charge that we had,” he said. “It’s getting back to normality and the panic has stopped.”

Aberdeen Asset Management has three women on its board, and Mr Gilbert said in the financial services industry it was at ‘chief’ level that UK companies were light.

“There’s an issue in what the Americans call the ‘c-suite’; it’s at that CEO, CFO, COO (chief operating office) level that we need more women,” he said.

Mr Gilbert said he was delighted Ms Sturgeon would be joining speakers that include CBI chief economist, Rain Newton-Smith.