SPECIALFEATURE
THE 2024 KENT WOMEN in BUSINESS SPECIAL FEATURE
“ Passion is energy . Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you .” OPRAH WINFREY
It seems absurd that in 2024 the overgeneralised notion that women are the ‘ fairer sex ’ - all grouped together and tarred with a brush that presumes emotional instability and the sole desire to populate Earth – still lingers in the air like a bad smell . And yet it does . Especially in the realms of business .
In recent years ( well , decades to be more accurate ), although some steps have been made towards addressing the repeated calls for greater gender equality and the drastic need to close the gender wage gap , there is still a fundamental lack of women in leadership roles . 96 % of CEOs of Britain ’ s largest public companies are men and 75 % of the members of FTSE 350 executive committees are men . There were no women at all on the executive committees of 10 % of these companies and nearly 70 % of companies have no female executive directors at all on their main boards of directors .
Nationally , it ’ s clear the progress towards gender equality in business is slow and the reality is that brilliant women are still getting overlooked . Flipping this to a positive though , there are four more female CEOs this year compared to last year amongst those FTSE 350 companies , and when ( not if ) more women become CEOs ( which they will ) it is more likely that there will be women appointed to other roles in the upper echelons of not only those FTSE 350 companies , but across our entire society , too .
Equally celebratory , the number of women hired as chief executives of UK retailers rose to a record high last year . 13 female chief executives were hired making up 31 % of the 42 appointments made ; a veritable landslide compared to just four female leaders appointed the year before .
Research shows a direct correlation between companies with more female executives heading up proceedings and bigger share price gains , stronger revenue growth and higher profits . Women executives therefore are not only proving to be driven , resilient and self-motivated , but they also drive impressive business results .
Which comes as no surprise ; women are incredibly capable , strong , powerful people , so let ’ s normalise that … Welcome to insideKENT ’ s Kent Women in Business special feature .
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