A string of high-profile female chief executives have left their posts in recent weeks but tech recruiter Harvey Nash today helped redress the gender balance by appointing a woman as chairman.
The jobs group has promoted Julie Baddeley, a former HR boss at the Woolwich who first joined Nash’s board last September, to chairman.
Harvey Nash said Baddeley, who is also on the board of baker Greggs and venture-capital group Chrysalis VCT, would take on the role in June or July.
The news comes amid concerns about the number of women on UK boards after two of the highest-profile female directors in the FTSE, Pearson chief executive Marjorie Scardino and Anglo American mining boss Cynthia Carroll, resigned.
In February 2011, the former banker Lord Davies published a Government report pushing for 25% of boardroom seats to be held by women by 2015.
There were 21 all-male boards when Davies set the target in February 2011, and the Professional Boards Forum reports that the percentage of women in FTSE 100 boardrooms has increased from 12.5% to 17.3% since then.
Among FTSE 250 firms, 12% of directors are women, up from 7.8% last February. Harvey Nash is not in the FTSE 250.
Eight firms still have men-only boards
