Financial Times – More women needed on boards, says UK’s biggest pension scheme

Egon Zehnder's 2018 Global Board Diversity Tracker found that more than seven in 10 new board appointments are going to men.

The UK’s largest private-sector pension scheme has set its sights on companies that lack boardroom diversity as figures show that men still win three-quarters of directorships at the world’s biggest companies. The Universities Superannuation Scheme, which manages £64 billion on behalf of 420,000 academics and higher education workers, has updated its voting policy for next spring’s season of annual meetings. The fund said it would vote against or abstain from voting for members of the board’s nomination committee if a company had no female directors and had no time set to introduce them.

This year, Egon Zehnder conducted a global study of board and senior executive roles at 1,610 public companies. It found that just over one in five board seats were occupied by women, but more than seven in 10 new positions were going to men. With this is mind, Elizabeth Fernando, head of equities at USS, has committed to review voting policies in an effort to encourage boards to become more diverse.
 

Full Story: More women needed on boards, says UK’s biggest pension scheme. By Owen Walker. 12, December 2018