Tag: UK

A Tribute to the Trailblazers – Watch Our 15-Year Celebration Film

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Looking Back with Pride. Looking Ahead with Purpose.

 

To mark the 15th anniversary of the 30% Club UK, we created a special video tribute – not only to commemorate how far we’ve come, but to honour the people who made it possible.

 

Premiered at our celebration evening at Claridge’s, this film is a heartfelt look back at the beginnings of the 30% Club. You’ll hear from founding Chairs, Steering Committee members, and passionate supporters who reflect on what it took to turn the 30% Club into a global movement.

 

Fifteen years ago, saying “we need more women on boards” was provocative. Today, it’s widely accepted. But that transformation didn’t happen overnight. It happened because individuals were willing to speak up, challenge norms, and put inclusion at the top of the business agenda.

 

This video is our tribute to the many who took that first step:

 

The founders who put their names – and reputations – on the line.

 

The Chairs and CEOs who signed up and opened boardroom doors.

 

The advocates and volunteers who built momentum on the ground.

 

And the next generation of leaders, already making their mark.

 

As we look to the future, our focus is shifting towards the executive pipeline – supporting women not only to join the boardroom but to lead it. Representation at ExCo -1 and -2 is the next frontier, and we’re committed to unlocking those leadership pathways.

 

Thank you to everyone who has supported us across the past 15 years – and to those joining us for the next 15.

Celebrating 15 Years of Progress on the Path to Parity

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Earlier this month, we marked a powerful milestone in our journey – 15 years since the 30% Club first launched in the UK. What began as a bold challenge to the status quo has become a global movement, transforming boardrooms and reshaping the leadership landscape.

 

Hosted at the iconic Claridge’s Hotel in London, our anniversary celebration brought together long-time allies, founding members, and future changemakers. It was a night to recognise just how far we’ve come – and to recommit to the work still ahead.

 

When the 30% Club launched in 2010, women held just 12.5% of seats on FTSE 100 boards. Today, that figure stands at an impressive 44.7%. That shift didn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of sustained, collective action – and a community of leaders, both men and women, who understand that diversity at the top isn’t a “nice to have” but a business imperative.


During the evening our UK Chair Pavita Cooper gave a powerful speech reflecting on Club’s origins and how far we have come. We also heard from Rupal Kantaria, UK Vice Chair, who laid out our vision for the future – including a focused effort on building a stronger female CEO pipeline.

 

We were also delighted to show a special video address from Rt Hon Rachel Reeves, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, who highlighted the economic and societal impact of more inclusive leadership. Speeches were closed by our sponsor Malik Karim, CEO of Fenchurch Advisory Partners, who made the evening possible, and whose continued support for gender parity in leadership exemplifies true allyship.

 

We are proud of the 21 international chapters, 1,800 member organisations, 31 scholarships for young women, and the world’s largest cross-company mentoring programme – all of which have grown from this shared commitment to progress.

 

As Pavita noted on the night: “We owe a debt of gratitude to those who stuck their necks out early, and to everyone who’s kept pushing forward on the #PathToParity.”

 

Thank you to everyone who has walked this journey with us. Here’s to continuing to break down barriers and building a future where every woman has the opportunity to lead.

 

15 Years of Impact: The 30% Club’s Journey

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From 12.5% to 44.7% – How a Bold Idea Sparked a Global Movement

 

When the 30% Club launched in 2010, just 12.5% of FTSE 100 board seats were held by women. That stark imbalance sparked the formation of a movement that set out to change the face of leadership, not just in the UK, but around the world.

 

Our new timeline marks the key milestones and turning points over the past 15 years, offering a visual reminder of what sustained advocacy, collaboration and courage can achieve. Click here to view the PDF in detail.

30% Club Timeline 2010-2025

The Early Days (2010–2012)

 

The concept for the 30% Club was born in early 2010 when there were just 12.5% of women on FTSE 100 boards. Founding Chair Helena Morrissey brought together high-profile Chairs and CEOs who were willing to challenge the status quo, and a dedicated group of women to make up the first 30% Club SteerCo.

 

By 2012, the number of Chairs signing up to the 30% Club had grown to 50 – proving change was not only necessary, but possible.

 

Momentum Builds (2013–2016)

 

The 30% Club went global, with the 30% Club Hong Kong chapter launch. The club also turned its vision towards the pipeline and executive education with the launch of our first scholarship programme, in partnership with Henley Business School and the FT.

 

The UK saw a significant rise in women on boards during this time period, supported by initiatives like the “Cracking the Code” report and further international expansion into the US, Southern Africa, Ireland, Japan, Australia, Turkey, Canada, Ecuador and Malaysia.

 

By 2015, the percentage of women on UK boards had risen to 23.5%.

 

Making progress (2017–2020)

 

Research reports, mentoring initiatives, more scholarship programmes and CEO campaigns drove deeper change. The percentage of women on UK FTSE 100 boards rose to 36.2%

 

Accelerating Impact (2021–2024)

 

The Club hit a landmark moment – there were no all-male boards left in the FTSE 100. During these years, new campaigns, data releases and Chair-led working groups focused on building the pipeline of future leaders.

 

By the end of 2024, women made up 44.7% of FTSE 100 board roles, and the conversation has now shifted to how we can improve the number of women in executive leadership positions – to date only 9% of FTSE 100 companies have a woman in the CEO position.

 

2025 and Beyond: The Work Continues

 

Our focus in the UK now extends to the executive pipeline – ensuring women are not only present, but poised to lead at every level.  As we head towards our 16th year, we’re doubling down on our mission to make inclusive leadership the norm, not the exception.

 

View our celebration video here.

30% Club UK marks their 15th anniversary at the London Stock Exchange Market Open

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On 25th March 2025, the 30% Club UK marked its 15-year anniversary with a special Market Open ceremony at the London Stock Exchange Group – an occasion to reflect on the progress made in gender diversity in corporate leadership, and to renew our commitment to accelerating change.

 

When the 30% Club launched in 2010, women held just 12.5% of FTSE 100 board seats. Today, that figure stands at 44.7% – a milestone that demonstrates the power of collective action and sustained advocacy. This shift has not happened by accident; it is the result of a relentless, coordinated effort by businesses, investors and policymakers to challenge outdated norms and drive real, structural change.

 

While there is much to celebrate, there is also much more to do. Women still make up just 9% of FTSE 100 CEOs and as Pavita Cooper, Chair of the UK 30% Club pointed out at the event “The pace of change at the CEO level remains glacial.”

 

Pavita Cooper & Rupal Kantaria Market Open

A Business Imperative, Not Just a Moral One

 

The Market Open brought together influential leaders committed to building more inclusive leadership teams. Pavita Cooper was joined by Adam Crozier, Chair of BT, who reflected on the progress made and the challenges that remain. Don Robert, Chair of LSEG, closed the speeches with a powerful call to action – reminding us that gender balance in leadership is not just the right thing to do, but a business imperative.

Pavita Cooper speaking at the 30% Club Anniversary celebrations at the London Stock Exchange Group
Pavita Cooper, UK Chair 30% Club
Adam Crozier Speaking at the London Stock Exchange Group 30% Club Market Open
Adam Crozier, Chair BT
Don Roberts, Chair, LSEG
Don Roberts, Chair, LSEG

Building on 15 Years of Momentum

The 30% Club’s journey over the past 15 years has demonstrated that change is possible – but only when organisations actively commit to it. Board representation targets, transparent reporting and leadership development programmes have all played a role in shifting the dial. However, closing the gender gap at the CEO level and within executive teams will require even more intentional action.

This includes:

Strengthening the pipeline: Ensuring more women move into profit and loss (P&L) roles, which are often stepping stones to CEO positions.

 

Challenging outdated succession planning: Encouraging boards to look beyond traditional networks when selecting future leaders.

 

Holding organisations accountable: Continuing to measure and report on gender diversity progress, not just at board level but across senior leadership teams.

With global challenges reshaping the business landscape, now is the time to double down on inclusive leadership. 

We are immensely grateful to the London Stock Exchange Group for hosting this event and to all our members, partners, and supporters who continue to champion this cause. The last 15 years have shown what’s possible. Now, we must accelerate progress and ensure the next generation of leaders operate in a business world that values talent above all else.

This International Women’s Day, 30% Club UK celebrates the UK’s leading women CEOs

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UK FTSE 100 reach 30% women on ExCos

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Inclusion

The UK’s top 100 ranked companies have reached the critical mass of 30% women in executive committees for the first time.  

The FTSE Women Leaders Review has also confirmed women hold 35% of all leadership roles in FTSE 350 companies and 42% of board seats. 

However, despite much welcomed progress for female representation, there remains an absence of women leading the UK’s largest organisations. And almost half of all available appointments now need to go to a woman to meet the Review’s 40% Women in Leadership target by the end of 2025. 

Pavita Cooper, UK Chair of the 30% Club, said: “Organisations need to double down on efforts to accelerate the progression of women through the pipeline. CEOs and Chairs need to drive the focus on closing this gap, failing to do so is simply bad for business.”

Read the full report here. 

Where we are

The 30% Club has come a long way from when it was set up in the UK in 2010.We now span six continents and more than 20 countries. We’re actively expanding into more G20 countries

Find out more

Toxic workplace culture is not something unique to the CBI

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Hanneke Smits

Corporate culture is often said to be defined by the worst act you allow to take place in your organisation. What is alleged to have taken place at the CBI exposes the very real human cost of failure.

As global chair of the 30% Club, a campaign that advocates for representation of women on the boards of some of the world’s biggest companies, I am deeply concerned by the failures that have engulfed the CBI. Our thoughts are with the women who have been victimised and we stand with them in solidarity.

Our fear at the 30% Club is that the failings currently under investigation are not limited to the CBI. Last year, Randstad reported that 72 per cent of women working in technology, healthcare, education and construction said they had either encountered or witnessed inappropriate behaviour from male colleagues at work. And analysis by the Scottish TUC reported that 85 per cent of women said that their reporting and experience of sexual harassment in the workplace was not taken seriously and dealt with appropriately. What is alleged to have happened at the CBI is indicative of this very issue.

A toxic workplace culture is a significant factor in the continued under-representation of women in business leadership and why gender equality can so often feel like a distant goal. We may be close to 40 per cent women on boards across the FTSE 100, but there are just nine female chief executives. We need greater representation of women at the top. Women should be taken seriously at work. Women, and quite frankly everyone, should be safe at work.

Hanneke Smits
Global Chair, The 30% Club

Where we are

The 30% Club has come a long way from when it was set up in the UK in 2010.We now span six continents and more than 20 countries. We’re actively expanding into more G20 countries

Find out more

Gender balance almost achieved for ethnic minority directors

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Diverse directors

Across the FTSE 350, the numbers of ethnic minority directors are currently balanced almost equally between men and women, with 48% being women (47% in the FTSE 100, 48% in the FTSE 250). 

The data emerged today from the latest update on the Parker Review – the business-led, UK government backed initiative that sets voluntary race equity targets for Britain PLC. 

The 30% Club is proud to support the Parker Review with our own targets for the FTSE 350 to have at least one ethnic minority director or member of the executive committee by the end of 2023 and for half of those newly created seats to go to women of colour.  

Today’s update also confirmed that 96 of the FTSE 100 had at least one ethnic minority director by the end of December 2022, up from 47% in 2016 and largely meeting the Parker Review’s initial target for Britain’s biggest companies. 

Of course, a single ethnic minority director is just the start of the change we need to see and so it was encouraging to see that half of those FTSE 100 companies actually had more than one ethnic minority director by the end of last year.

But as we have seen in the gender diversity space, there is still so much to be done if true equity is to be achieved.

It remains the case that the vast majority of ethnic minority directors occupy non-executive roles. In the FTSE 100, for example, while the data revealed ethnic minority directors now account for 18% of all directorships, just six ethnic minority directors held a chair position, only seven were CEOs and nine were CFOs.

However, there are many practical things company leaders can do to bring about change from collecting more and better data to taking part in reverse mentoring. 

For example, the 30% Club is helping organisations build on their commitment to race equity with our Leaders for Race Equity programme, run in partnership with the CBI’s Change the Race Ratio and Moving Ahead.

We match CEOs with ethnic minority executives from outside their organisations to learn from each other’s experiences and challenges while also attending working groups with their HR and D&I leads on topics ranging from data to AI to inform and improve corporate action on race equity.

 
We hope this initiative will help our CEO members deliver impactful leadership in race equity throughout their organisations to ensure a wide pipeline of diverse talent progressing and thriving right to the very top.
Parker Review stats
Leaders for Race Equity

The Parker Review has set new targets for December 2027:

  •  
  • – Each FTSE 350 company will be asked to set a percentage target for senior management positions that will be occupied by ethnic minority executives in December 2027
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  • – 50 of the UK’s largest private companies have been set the target of having at least one ethnic minority director on the main board by December 2027. 
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  • – Each company will also be asked to set a target for the percentage of ethnic minority executives within its senior management team 

 

You can read more about the targets and access the rest of the Parker Review data by clicking the box below. 

 

Read THE REPORT

Where we are

The 30% Club has come a long way from when it was set up in the UK in 2010.We now span six continents and more than 20 countries. We’re actively expanding into more G20 countries

Find out more

Gender-balanced boards more likely to push for better company culture

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What female directors prioritise

What diversity delivers

The 30% Club, in partnership with board advisory specialists Lintstock, has today issued new qualitative analysis based on the engagement of male and female directors in 100 FTSE board reviews in a report titled Evidencing the Contribution of Gender Balance to Board Effectiveness.  

The survey showcases the difference gender diversity makes to the running of corporate boards, with a significant finding that women are more likely than men to focus on emerging issues, notably company culture and employee development.

In addition, female directors were also more likely to offer criticism and recommendations for improvement on both their own performance and their business activities.

The past twenty years have irrevocably changed the way businesses think about board composition and the impact this has on decision-making, with a push for greater gender diversity at the forefront of this shift in perception.

Through examining the engagement of male and female directors in board reviews, this study illustrates how gender diversity contributes positively to board performance. The findings show that gender balance is no longer a question of fairness, but that of effectiveness.

 

 

Despite the increased focus on ethnic diversity, the analysis highlights there have yet to be any examples of boards truly grappling with diversity in its wider forms, with some mismatches occurring between diversity ambitions and boards’ actions.

By demonstrating the link between diversity and effective oversight, we hope that this study will renew the impetus of boards to go beyond the traditional candidate pool, to secure directors with a broader set of skills and backgrounds.

 

 

 

Other key findings…

 
  • – Female directors are more likely to identify the need for further board diversity in areas such as age, culture and social background

  • – Women are three times more likely to recommend greater ethnic diversity than their male colleagues

  • – Women engaged heavily on employee sentiment and culture and were over 50% more likely to serve as a designated non-executive director for engaging with the workforce – the most frequently adopted employee engagement mechanism
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  • – Women were 50% more inclined to raise ESG performance as an area for improvement.
Read THE REPORT
What women want
Hanneke Smits

Hanneke Smits, global chair of the 30% Club and CEO of BNY Investment Management, said: “The findings further confirm that a more gender diverse group of board members will consider a greater variety of issues and ask a wider range of questions. Of particular importance in the report is the evidence that female board directors place a greater priority on hiring diverse teams and therefore increasing access to a broader pool of skills and experience.

 

“Against the backdrop of a challenging macro and geopolitical environment, it’s critical that companies harness the power of diverse talent at all levels of their organisation to succeed. At the 30% Club our focus is unwavering: diversity must remain on the board agenda and there is genuine progress to ensure current, and future, executive leadership teams better represent the society we live in.”

 

Neil Alderton, a partner at Lintstock, said: “Oversight of employees was becoming a headline concern for boards even before the upheaval of COVID-19 and findings from our study reveals that female board members are more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to identify the need to focus on people development and improving the diversity of the workforce.

 

“Better gender balance is not only a question of fairness – our findings show that it is also a matter of effectiveness. We see that diversity of gender contributes to diversity of thought around a number of board performance areas, broadening boards’ horizons and bolstering the support and challenge that directors are able to provide as a collective.”

 

30% Club Ireland launches 2023 scholarships

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30% Club Ireland

The 30% Club Ireland, whose aim is to achieve better gender balance at all levels in Irish businesses, has announced two new development opportunities for women in business – a 2023 programme of 27 postgraduate and executive education scholarships and, in partnership with AIB, 30 access opportunities for women in SMEs on the IMI/30% Club cross-company mentoring programme.

The scholarship programme, which is delivered in partnership with key education providers, covers a range of executive education disciplines including prestigious MBA programmes and technical masters programmes in STEM, Healthcare, Public Policy and other specialist areas. 

First offered in 2015, the annual programme aims to raise participation rates for women in, and general awareness of, executive education and to provide financial support for women interested in executive education, who may be limited by funding concerns. 

 

Gillian Harford, Country Executive with the 30% Club commented: “International Women’s Day takes place on March 8th. But it is about more than celebrating just one day, it is about taking real and practical steps that will help to bring about more balanced investment in talent and career progression.

“Having offered just three scholarships in year one, we are delighted now to be offering 27 scholarships for 2023”, said Ms Harford. “In addition to providing great opportunities for talented women, the programme gives us, and our education partners, the opportunity to encourage more diversity in executive classrooms for greater learning outcomes.”

The scholarship programme is open to all women and is not restricted to 30% Club member company supporters.

In partnership with AIB, the 30% Club has also announced a new 3-year initiative that will provide sponsored access for 30 women from the SME sector to the IMI/30% Club Cross Company Mentoring programme.  The IMI/30% Club programme started in 2015 and brings together experienced leaders and mid-career high potential individuals for mentoring focused on both professional and personal development.

Read THE FULL REPORT
Scholarship

Where we are

The 30% Club has come a long way from when it was set up in the UK in 2010.We now span six continents and more than 20 countries. We’re actively expanding into more G20 countries

Find out more
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