Which financials are falling short on female representation?
Magellan has been identified as the worst ASX 200 financial for gender diversity on its board.
Over the past few years, there had been a push for firms to have 30% female representation on their boards but 87 companies were still falling short.
According to the latest survey from the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), Magellan was the seventh-worst out of all 200 firms and the lowest-ranked financial firm.
The firm had just one woman on its group board, a percentage of 14.3%, which was less than half the 30% target set by the AICD.
The only female representative was Karen Phin who joined as a non-executive director in 2014 and also sat on the firm’s audit and risk and remuneration and nominations committees. Magellan also had a female chief financial officer in Kirsten Morton who joined in October 2018.
A spokesperson for Magellan declined to comment.
Out of the whole ASX 200, there were 27 firms which had only one woman on their board and two – Perseus Mining and Silver Lake Resources – which had zero women.
Other financial firms which had not yet achieved the 30% target were Janus Henderson (20%), Challenger (25%), and Perpetual (28%).
At the other end of the spectrum, the best financial firms included Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Bendigo and Adelaide Bank and Macquarie Group which all had 44% female representation.
In total, there were 16 financials which had achieved the 30% female board representation which were Westpac, Platinum Asset Management, Suncorp, QBE, Netwealth, IOOF, AMP, Bank of Queensland, ANZ, National Australia Bank, IAG, Pendal, Macquarie, CBA and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.
Just 20 of the ASX 200 firms had a female chair and 30% of these were financial firms; Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, CBA, IAG, AMP, Netwealth and Suncorp.
AUTHOR
Laura Dew
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