2010 CWDI Report:
Women Directors in Largest Banks in Fortune Global 200
The 2010 CWDI Report on Women Board Directors in Largest Banks in Fortune Global 200 focuses on the 30 banks represented in the 200 companies Forbes lists as the largest publicly traded companies worldwide. The study found that women held 15.6% of board seats in banks of the F200 listing.
Key Findings
- Good news: Of the 31 banks in the 2010 Fortune Global 200, 30 banks have at least one women board director. The one bank without any women directors is Mitsubushi UFJ Financial in Japan.
- Good News: Women make up 15.6% of all board seats of the 31 banks in the 2010 Fortune Global 200. Since CWDI began tracking women board directors of the 200 largest companies in the world in 2004, they have risen from 10.6% to 15.6%. Most importantly, half of the 5% increase in the six-year period occurred in just the past year.
- Bad news: Women are still a small minority of all board directors. Men hold 84.4% of all board seats on banks in the 2010 Fortune Global 200.
- The bank with the highest percentage of women board directors is China Construction Bank, which has six women directors on a 17-member board – a percentage of 35.3%. Two of its women directors are foreigners: Jenny Shipley, former Prime Minister of New Zealand; and Elaine LaRoche, an American who served as the former CEO of Morgan Stanley China and Salisbury Pharmacy Group.
- Deutsche Bank also has six women board members and is second among the Top Five with 30% women board members, while BNP Paribas has the third highest percentage – 29.4% – with five women out of 17 board members. Wells Fargo has the highest percentage (26.7%) of the five US banks in the study. Credit Agricole of France rounds out the Top Five with a percentage of 23.8%.
- The banks with the largest percentage increase from 2009 to 2010 are Barclays (UK), Dexia Group (Belgium), and Credit Agricole (France). In the one year period, Barclays improved from zero women on the board out of 13 to two women out of 14, an increase of 14.3%. Dexia and Credit Agricole also added two women directors. Dexia increased from 11.8% to 22.2%, while Credit Agricole’s percentage of women directors rose from 14.3% to 23.8%.
- US banks are not the pace-setters. Wells Fargo is the only one of the five US banks in the study with a percentage higher than the average of 15.6%. Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs are all below the average bank in the study.
- Chinese and European banks lead the way. Along with the China Construction Bank, the three other Chinese Banks included in the Fortune Global 200 (Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, and Bank of China) have average women’s representation of 19% on their boards.
- Eighteen European banks rank above 15.6% with the four French banks (BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Societe Generale, BPCE) averaging 21.4% of board seats held by women.
- Banks tend to outpace the average Global 200 company. In each of CWDI’s studies in 2004, 2006, 2009, and 2010, the banks in the Fortune Global 200 had a higher average percentage than the Fortune Global 200 as a whole.
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