The proportion of women on the boards of 200 of Britain’s top financial firms has risen to nearly a third in the five years since the government launched an initiative to improve gender balance in the sector, a report said yesterday.
Since the launch of the HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter in March 2016, the number of women on the boards of the companies had risen to 32 percent from 23 percent, think tank New Financial said in a review of the charter’s impact.
Female representation on executive committees had increased to 22 percent from 14 percent, it added. Based on the current rate of change, women would reach parity in boardroom in 2029 and on executive committees in 2033.
“While female representation is moving in the right direction, there is still a long way to go,” said Yasmine Chinwala, partner at New Financial and coauthor of the report.
“If the industry is to maintain the pace of change in the next half decade, it will have to take on the tougher challenges,” she said.
Among them are the need to build a pipeline of female talent, ensure accountability is taken across the organization and to develop more women in revenue-generating roles.
“Over the next five years, we need to move from talk to action, from working in isolation to working together, and move from a narrow perception of gender diversity to encompass women from every walk of life and every part of society,” said Amanda Blanc, chief executive at British insurer Aviva PLC.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last