Female presence on IBEX boards has reached record levels

In this article published by DirigentesDigital.com, Mariana González, Morrow Sodali’s Project Manager, comments on the growth of the female presence on the IBEX boards over the last years.

At the end of the 2022 AGM season, based on the data collected in the last Morrow Sodali’s magazine Lighthouse - Europe edition, the presence of women at the board level in the Ibex 35 was on average 36%, compared to 16.09% in 2013. 

“In my opinion, female presence in the boardroom brings relevant skills that are complementary and essential for the good corporate governance and performance of the company. Therefore, the more diversity is represented on the boards, not only in terms of gender but also age, ethnicity, education, background, etc., the more constructive will be the dialogue among board members, to meet the increasingly complex challenges that companies are facing today,” comments González.

“In June 2022, the EU announced that by 2026, listed companies shall aim to reach a diversity threshold for the less represented gender of at least 40% relating to non-executive directors or at least 33% of executive and non-executive directors combined. In Spain, the government recently approved a draft Law on equal representation of women and men in corporate bodies, thus accelerating the implementation of the European directive into the Spanish legislation by July 2024. This implies that, in the coming years, we expect an increase of female board members, in order to meet the 40% threshold,” adds González.

Read the full article here (in Spanish).