Chris Rowson, MD at

Ecardshack

, discusses the worrying lack of gender diversity at the top-end of the world’s largest companies

Around the world HR experts would agree that there is still room for improvement when it comes to diversity in the workplace. But, how bad is the current situation?

Ecardshack’s latest content marketing piece illustrates the scale of the problem, and despite a lot of progress being made, boardroom representation is still uneven between men and women in some of the largest and most successful in the world corporations . For example, there are 13 people on the board of the energy giant ExxonMobil but only 15 per cent are women, and it get’s worse when you take a look at their 29 executives where a mere seven per cent are women.

The infographic below shows ExxonMobil isn’t the only B2B Fortune 500 company to have have uneven boardroom representation:

• Women represent only 18 per cent of the board at Chevron in comparison to 82 per cent of men

• General Motors is slightly better as 25 per cent of the board are women and 75 per cent are male

• Similarly, a quarter (25 per cent) of Phillips 66 board are women compared to three quarters (75 per cent) who are male.

A number of Fortune 500 B2C companies need to work on their approach to diversity, as revealed in the graphic, including leading car manufacturer, Ford where women amount to 14 per cent of the board.

Additionally, it could be fair to assume that the lack of diversity at board level will also echo the gender pay gap, as men at board level are likely to earn more than women do. We know that this is an issue our industry, as earlier in the year B2B Marketing’s

S

alary Survey 2016/17


revealed that the average female B2B marketing salary is £45,000 per annum in comparison to the average male salary which stands at £52,000.

A diverse board is central to your company’s success whether you’re part of a global Fortune 500 company or a B2B marketing agency as diversity brings in a variety of different insights, thinking, opinions and perspectives about markets, employees, consumers and business practices.