Daily Mail - 30.07.2019

Daily Mail, Tuesday, July 30, 2019
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City Editor: Alex Brummer http://www.thisismoney.co.uk Business Editor: Ruth Sunderland

City Finance

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 FTSE 100 bosses are

women – one fewer than men

named David.
There are as many Steves, Andrews
and Peters running the UK’s big-
gest listed companies as women, a
Daily Mail audit of the UK’s 100
leading firms has found.
Those women who do reach the pin-
nacle of corporate Britain still suffer
from the gender pay gap, receiving sig-
nificantly less for doing the same job.
The top 20 paid bosses were all men.
The highest paid woman, mother-of-
four 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 busi-
ness. It supports recent research show-
ing that women are not being pro-
moted 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-of-
three 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 cam-
paigning 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 tak-

ing over at housebuilder Persim-

mon and David Schwimmer

becoming chief executive of the

London Stock Exchange.

The trailblazing female bosses

took home an average pay pack-

age of £4.3m in 2018. For the 94

men, the average was £4.6m.

This is despite the women’s glit-

tering 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 Cam-

bridge graduate, has seen shares

rise by 11.5pc since she arrived –

but she is 74th in the FTSE 100 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 Univer-

sity 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 co-

author of the report, said: ‘The big

gender pay gap across organisa-

tions 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.’

FEMALE CHIEF EXECUTIVES

by Tom Witherow

LIV GARFIELD

SEVERN TRENT

David Jenkinson,

Persimmon

David Potts, Morrisons

Dave Lewis, Tesco

David Sleath, Segro

David Thomas, Barratt

David Schwimmer, LSE

David Stevens, Admiral

DAVIDS STEVES PETERS ANDREWS

Stephen Carter,

Informa

Stephen Hester, RSA

Steve Foots, Croda

Steve Mogford,

United Utilities

Steve Rowe, M&S

Steve Hare, Sage

Peter Harrison, Schroders

Peter Oswald, Mondi

Pete Redfern, Taylor

Wimpey

Peter Cowgill, JD Sports

Peter Duffy, Just Eat

Peter Brooks-Johnson,

Rightmove

Andre Lacroix, Intertek

Andy Ransom, Rentokil

Andrew Mackenzie, BHP

Andrew Williams, Halma

Andrew Reynolds Smith,

Smiths Group

Andrew Croft,

St James’s Place

Page 65

THE

PENNY JAMES

DIRECT LINE

ALISON BRITTAIN

WHITBREAD

ALISON COOPER

IMPERIAL BRANDS

EMMA WALMSLEY

GSK

CAROLYN MCCALL

ITV