Women have been coming into their own on the JSE boards
OVER THE PAST five years, there has been a 39% improvement in gender diversity on JSE boards as “gender main-streaming at board level is a reality“, according to the JSE-listed boards report 2021, released yesterday.
The report, which was compiled from Integrated Annual Reports for the reporting period January 1 to December 31, 2021, found that women were making substantial progress in being appointed to a majority of board positions.
In 2021 women held 32% of board positions versus 68% of men on JSE-listed boards. This was a vast improvement from 2017, where only 23% of women held board positions versus men at 77%. “Companies are changing and gender main-streaming at board level is a reality. We always note that it is the business community at large that should decide if the change is progressing fast enough,” the report noted.
During the research period of this report, published by Business Engage, there were 296 companies listed on the main and AltX boards of the JSE.
Business Engage chief executive Colleen Larsen said encouragingly, women were increasingly being appointed either chairperson of the board or the lead independent director.
“Furthermore, the net is being cast increasingly wide, reflected by the fact few female directors have more than three JSE-listed company directorships.
“The fear of the Golden Skirt Syndrome where a few well-connected women garner multiple appointments has proven unfounded,” she said.
Looking at board composition, in 2021 only 18% of women were the chairperson versus 82% of men. However, in 2017, only 8% of women held that position versus 92% of men.
Lead independent directors in 2021 saw a ratio of 76% of men versus 24% women, while in 2017 only 7% of women held the position versus 93% of men.
In 2021 chief executives consisted of 94% of men versus 6% women, from 2017 that saw 3% of women as chief executives versus 97%.
Meanwhile, chief financial officers in 2021 consisted of 78% men versus 22% of women from 10% women versus 90% men in 2017.
There were currently 35 opportunities for women on boards. This figure was lower than in previous years, however, as reported in the report from last year, some positions announced had been filled, it said.
“This would be expected as companies make good on target sets. It is now assessed that a total of 227 seats on boards for females have been declared as being available since 2017,” it said.
The report found that in 2020, 27 companies analysed had already achieved gender parity or better. It further said 20 companies were close to achieving parity whereby the appointment of one female to the board in place of a male member would achieve such parity.
“These numbers are climbing steadily. As noted previously, we are not suggesting here that these companies have any plans to achieve such parity. For clarity a company is considered to have achieved parity even where there is an uneven number of board members and there is no gap in the split of members such as six males and five females on the board,” the report said.
While there remained several all-male boards, these numbers had shrunk dramatically over the past five years.
At the date of publication of their annual reports, there were 17 companies that it surveyed that still had no female members on their boards.
“This number has come down dramatically since the last report. If South Africa follows the trend in the UK, these figures will decrease until there are only a few male-only boards, then take quite a while to achieve zero all-male boards.“