No female retail chief executives left in FTSE

[MondayYogurt]

Sorry I don't have a share token as this has popped up on my iphone stocks news. It feels as if things are going backwards.

apple.news/AtrAz4J5oTbuFe2C5CK5XOw

^Not a single FTSE retailer has a female chief executive and there is only one chairwoman, according to a report.
Since the departures of Karen Hubbard at Card Factory and Véronique Laury at Kingfisher, large London-listed retailers have been run almost exclusively by men, despite this being a sector where most of the workforce is female and where 80 per cent of purchasing decisions are made by women.
Elaine O’Donnell, 50, who was made non-executive chairwoman of Games Workshop, the £3.5 billion seller of miniature gaming figurines, is the sole chairwoman of a large listed company.^

Jesus, that's bad, isn't it? No wonder so many big retailers don't seem to know what we actually want to buy.

Oh, this is such a pet bug bear of mine. Some retail companies got really badly burnt in the first few gender pay gap reports because of course, they had 90% women on the shop floor and 90%+ men in the executive suite ie not just the FTSE 100 or even FTSE 250 companies.

I'm not sure what it's like today, but when I first started working 20+ years ago, i had a few clients in the tourism industry and it was the same - the vast bulk of travel advisors were women but the managers and executives were always men. It used to INFURIATE me even then.

There are also huge race issues in retail. eg I used to live in SW London and it never ceased to amaze and irritate me how at our big local supermarkets the cashier staff would mostly be black or asian, but the managers were almost all white. It might be better now - this was close to 15 years ago - but I'm not that optimistic.

What I've never understood is why this is so difficult to fix. I mean, I get that a lot of shop floor staff are women at least partly because set shifts is useful if you're looking after children and in many cases, you can also choose shifts that work with your other commitments, but it's hard to believe there aren't women in these roles who would nonetheless like to advance and take on more. Ditto, what about graduate schemes for retail - are they actively aiming to attract and recruit women?1?

I think the graduate schemes do recruit women but the question is how good are they at keeping them? This is anecdotal and purely off the top of my head but I can think of at least two colleagues who started off in retail management but got out because the hours were brutal.

Just to be clear, they got out and into another work sector - one in a management role and one not.

FFS! Yes agree with the other poster, things feel as though we are going backward!

The companies need to take some responsibility for this. Retail is staffed on the whole by women, they need to be represented in the top. Makes a mockery of the progress we’ve made.

This is a disgrace. But my experience of the industry is that a lot of the gestures towards addressing gender imbalance at the high levels, and pay gap, are entirely tokenistic. Things like, bumping up the number of women on the board with a couple of non-execs meanwhile decision-makers all male. Gesture towards flexible working at head offices but no hope of promotion if you’re not full time, as an industry it has poor maternity benefits.. etc etc. V disappointing.

It's this piece from the Times today:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/no-female-retail-chief-executives-left-in-ftse-vgz6sbbll?shareToken=c4be324c4e19943c15547501345d94d3

The piece covers the lack of ethnic diversity too.

@Lifeaintalwaysempty

This is a disgrace. But my experience of the industry is that a lot of the gestures towards addressing gender imbalance at the high levels, and pay gap, are entirely tokenistic. Things like, bumping up the number of women on the board with a couple of non-execs meanwhile decision-makers all male. Gesture towards flexible working at head offices but no hope of promotion if you’re not full time, as an industry it has poor maternity benefits.. etc etc. V disappointing.

Yes, this. And the culture is very "male" in terms of approach etc.

What I never understand is, for example, you'll hear about women at stores like M&S as head buyer or fashion lead or whatever, but they never seem to get to the top of the management tree? What role do all these men come through to make it to the top?

There are huge cultural issues. I think a big part of what the book Invisible Women covers is this point that systems are just designed for men of a certain type, including work processes, expectations, benefits etc. And while I have no personal experience of retail beyond a saturday job when I was 16, I'd put money on the cultures in these organisations and the way they're set up being designed to promote more traditionally male routes to leadership. eg supply chain or finance being seen as more important than stock picking or customer service. Which I"d argue is ridiculous and could be turned on its head in about 10 different ways.

This 👆

@GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal

Jesus, that's bad, isn't it? No wonder so many big retailers don't seem to know what we actually want to buy.

I think this is a good point - or they insist what they are selling is what we want to buy despite all evidence to contrary.

I do dsupect it's like many indurties starts out with decentish numbers in graduate schemes than loses them.

I think this is a good point - or they insist what they are selling is what we want to buy despite all evidence to contrary.

I think that when it comes to shopping, I'm clearly just your average Jane Doe because i've noticed that stores I generally like and spend money at are also ones that tend to do well. While stores that perhaps I've stopped going into etc, often do badly. And I assume it's because the things I like/don't like about certain stores are the same as a huge bunch of other women... women who are directly responsible for the success/failure of these organisations.

If you asked me why I choose to shop in Store A vs Store B, I could provide answers. I bet you that the vast bulk of women working in those stores could provide similar answers....

Well I'm happy to buy more Warhammer but I don't think that will help the situation much!

There are also huge race issues in retail. eg I used to live in SW London and it never ceased to amaze and irritate me how at our big local supermarkets the cashier staff would mostly be black or asian, but the managers were almost all white. It might be better now - this was close to 15 years ago - but I'm not that optimistic.

I remember when there was some backlash against Sainsburys supporting Black History Month Douglas Murray pointed out that there were very very few non-white people on the board and high up at Sainsburys.

Monday my family will be helping with the Warhammer purchases too!

Sharon White chairs the John Lewis Partnership

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_White_(businesswoman)

[quote Needmoresleep]Sharon White chairs the John Lewis Partnership

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_White_(businesswoman)[/quote]
Yes, great. One woman. This isn't a ftse 100 company so the original issue remains valid. And one retail company is not exactly a huge thing to write home about.

Also, she took over when John lewis was starting to have problems. Which is very common for women in senior leadership roles - they then fail to turn things around and are blamed and accused for being terrible leaders. I't pretty clear that they get these jobs because many men won't take them on.

It's pretty bonkers isn't it that when as you say 80 percent of purchasing decisions are made by women that it is men making the decisions about how we go about this. True patriarchy in action!