Women have rapidly become a significant force in Scandinavia's leading boardrooms, thanks to quotas and other promotional policies, a recent survey shows. Elsewhere in western Europe, however, the number of female directors has barely changed in the past two years.
Nearly 29 per cent of top board seats are held by women in Norway, where listed companies must meet a 40 per cent quota by 2008 or risk being wound up. This is an increase from 22 per cent two years ago, according to the survey conducted by Egon Zehnder, the executive search firm, with data from BoardEx.
The survey is published this week by the European Professional Women's Network, which promotes women's progress through individual and corporate members including Alcatel, Deloitte and IBM.The two-yearly study tracks Europe's 300 largest companies by market capitalisation.
While average female representation in Europe's top boardrooms hovered at about 8 per cent, women took nearly 23 per cent of directorships in Sweden, 20 per cent in Finland and just under 18 per cent in Denmark.
"These improvements are a direct result of highly proactive policies to increase the representation of women on corporate boards," says Margaret Milan, president of the European women's network.
The concept of gender quotas is spreading. In Spain, the government has proposed a draft bill including a 40 per cent board quota. France's institute of directors has recommended 20 per cent after a legal provision to enforce quotas was rejected by constitutional review.
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, founder of the European women's network, says: "This survey's results certainly seem to indicate that quotas are a far more effective stimulant to progress than natural evolution."
One perceived challenge is finding enough qualified women. There are training courses for potential female directors and the survey suggests looking for candidates abroad. More than 70 per cent of female directors in the Netherlands and 40 per cent in Finland were from abroad.
It also underlines the scarcity of women business leaders in Europe, with only seven of the 300 companies having a female chief executive or chair.