Progress has been made across the globe but, in some countries, there is still a long way to go.

Barry Gamble Chairman, The NED City Debates.

FOREWORD

The reassessment of how the business world needs to adapt and operate in the future has been accelerated by Covid–19 and all its consequences. The debate about where people work and the function of offices continues and so has a wider recognition of the importance of ESG. While environmental and social considerations are rightly securing more attention, these must always be underpinned by governance. The composition and development of leadership teams, including boards, is critical to corporate governance considerations. The contribution of diversity to corporate performance is well recognized. Promoting constructive challenge by mixing the skills, backgrounds, experience and outlooks of boards and leadership teams is seen to reduce the risk of groupthink in decision making. Measuring diversity levels and changes therein remains problematic. The issues of what data would be desirable to capture and measure while strictly adhering to the necessary data safeguards are challenging. But to make, by definition, measurable progress with diversity requires solid data. The most accessible by far is gender data, which forms the basis of this valuable study. However, it is recognized that data on intellect, skillset, age, ethnicity and sexual preference – plus other areas, no doubt – need to be introduced to the array. In my almost a decade and a half of working with BoardEx as an ambassador, I have continued to be impressed by the discipline and rigour at the heart of the BoardEx approach. This report is built on solid data foundations and the conclusions will, no doubt, inform thinking and provide useful insights among HR professionals and leadership teams themselves as to how further diversity might be achieved. Too many functions continue to be seen as men’s natural domain so there is much scope to make meaningful change. Shifting habits and practice outside the boardroom also offers future scope to make further progress in boardrooms. The preponderance of women in HR and legal roles perhaps points to a certain amount of pigeonholing. Moving away from this by broadening the range of functional roles, including general management, operations and technical as well as property and purchasing, offers the potential for leadership teams to be refashioned to look and think differently. Although country–level experience varies, it is surprising that the absolute leadership team figures, even of the best performing country indices, are significantly under–shooting where they need to be. It is also striking that these diversity measures fall below those in the boardroom. Since the leadership teams of this study provide the talent pool for tomorrow’s boards the findings here point to a need to redouble diversity efforts to avoid a reversal of the progress made in recent years. Through its careful interpretation of the data, this report makes a valuable contribution to thought leadership and is likely to further the debate but also point to some necessary actions. BoardEx will continue to gather the data to monitor and report on the resulting future outcomes.

Barry Gamble Chairman, The NED City Debates.