THE DAVE DILEMMA

Seven men called David run FTSE 100 firms — outnumbering the six women who have made it to the top of Britain’s biggest companies

JUST six FTSE100 bosses are women – one fewer than men named David.

There are as many Steves, Andrews and Peters running the UK’s biggest listed companies as women, a Daily Mail audit of the UK’s 100 leading firms has found.

Those women who do reach the pinnacle of corporate Britain still suffer from the gender pay gap, receiving significantly less for doing the same job.

The top 20 paid bosses were all men. The highest paid woman, mother-offour Emma Walmsley, chief executive of pharmaceutical group GSK, came in at number 21 with a £5.9m pay packet.

The figures are a damning indictment of the gender pay gap in British business. It supports recent research showing that women are not being promoted to the top executive roles, despite there being record numbers of women on boards.

There has been change among female leaders. Veronique Laury, 54, mother-ofthree and former boss of B&Q owner Kingfisher, recently stepped down amid falling profits. Penny James took over this summer as chief executive of insurer Direct Line. Her basic salary is £800,000.

Female bosses are on average paid £300,000 less than their male counterparts.

Last night MPs and campaigners said the Government must act if businesses will not address the gender imbalance.

Maria Miller, Conservative MP and chairman of the Women and Equalities Committee, said: ‘These findings are extremely disappointing. This gap in pay reflects the lack of women being promoted into senior management positions. If businesses fail to remedy this, then Government must act.’

Sir Patrick McLoughlin, Conservative MP and member of the Business Select Committee, said: ‘Business has got to look to make changes. There are some outstanding women business leaders – they should be on equal footing to their male counterparts.’

Gemma Rosenblatt, of the Fawcett Society, a charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights, said: ‘We can’t be complacent while there are still more Davids than there are women running these companies. Equality won’t happen on its own. We have to make it happen.’

The ratio of Davids to women has slightly worsened from a year ago as the ranks of Daves were boosted by Dave Jenkinson taking over at housebuilder Persimmon and David Schwimmer becoming chief executive of the London Stock Exchange.

The trailblazing female bosses took home an average pay package of £4.3m in 2018. For the 94 men, the average was £4.6m.

This is despite the women’s glittering careers at some of Britain’s best-known companies.

Carolyn McCall, 57, a mother-of-three who runs ITV, puts her success down to being ‘hyper-organised’.

Liv Garfield, 43, was the youngest female Footsie boss when she took over utility company Severn Trent in 2014. The mother of two, a Cambridge graduate, has seen shares rise by 11.5pc since she arrived – but she is 74th in the FTSE100 pay table. GSK boss Walmsley, 50, has earned £400,000 per year less on average in her first two full years as chief executive than predecessor Sir Andrew Witty.

Last year the Government’s Hampton-Alexander Review named and shamed 75 FTSE 350 firms who, it said, had included one woman on their boards as a token gesture. And research published by Cranfield University in Bedford this month said there is a ‘worrying trend’ of women being promoted to boards to ‘tick a box’.

Sue Vinnicombe, professor of women and leadership and coauthor of the report, said: ‘The big gender pay gap across organisations can be explained primarily by the few women holding senior executive jobs.

‘And now, where they do, they are not paid the equivalent amount to their male counterparts.’