Category: Board

In this report, we look at the breakdown of non-executive and executive director appointments. The start of a new year typically brings feelings of hope, and as the clock ticked into 1 January, business execs will have been forgiven for leaning towards optimism in their outlook for 2022. Following a difficult couple of years, England was getting through a winter spike in Covid cases without returning to lockdown rules which crippled large parts of the economy in 2020 and 2021.

In this report, we analyse the board appointments to the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 listed companies in Q4 2021 and share a deeper analysis of the full year. Having been conducting these reports now since 2018, we have a strong basis through which to provide comparative analysis and draw conclusions as to the buoyancy of FTSE board activity and what impacts the market.

The chair is in a unique position when it comes to a subject that is vital to the success of every business: succession. On the one hand, chairs play a crucial role in ensuring there is a sensible and appropriate succession plan in place for the two most important executive positions: CEO and CFO. Meanwhile, as is discussed throughout this report, they are also tasked with ensuring a diverse composition of non- exec board members around them. And all the while considering whether they are meeting the evolving needs to best serve as chair themselves.

Respondents of a 2021 board study by Savannah reveal how a business landscape where volatility is the norm impacts the attributes of successful chairs and boards of the future.

Purpose, innovation and diversity are driving a realigned set of priorities for board directors. When the chairs and other executive and non-executive directors were asked by Savannah Group in mid-2021 to rank the top issues of importance to the board today, the results revealed a stark realignment of priorities from what was traditionally associated with boardroom decisions.

In a dramatically shifting business environment, the traditional roles of the chair and board are having to evolve. Non-financial issues, and non-traditional board measures such as sustainability, D&I, digital transformation and social purpose, are adding new dimensions to board leadership and governance, causing the role of the board to evolve. The pressure is on all board directors, but most of all the chair, to not only take on a more active role but also to reflect on what they personally need to bring to the table as companies look to reinvent themselves for a post- Covid, post-Brexit age.

In this report, we look at the breakdown of non-executive and executive director appointments. The long-anticipated ‘Freedom Day’ came 19 days into the third quarter of 2021 in England, finally unleashing the British economy from the remaining shackles of Covid restrictions, albeit with numerous limitations still remaining on global travel. For many businesses, certainly in the sectors most affected by lockdowns, it was a moment of jubilation and relief that they could turn back to the recruitment market to reignite their growth plans following 18 months of
stagnation.

Non-financial issues, and non-traditional board measures such as sustainability, D&I, digital transformation and social purpose, are adding new dimensions to board leadership and governance, causing the role of the board to evolve. The pressure is on all board directors, but most of all the chair, to not only take on a more active role but also to reflect on what they personally need to bring to the table as companies look to reinvent themselves for a post-Covid, post-Brexit age.

In this report, we look at the breakdown of non-executive and executive director appointments. The UK economy sprung back to life in the second quarter as the government’s phased reopening plan saw the return of non-essential retail and outdoor hospitality in April followed by indoor hospitality and some events in May. Though England’s so-called ‘Freedom Day’, removing all remaining legal restrictions, was delayed by four weeks, pushing it into Q3, it didn’t blight the growing optimism among UK businesses, which for many has been brewing since Q1.

In this report, we look at the breakdown of non-executive and executive director appointments. As is tradition, we have crunched the data to identify both new and continuing trends while also highlighting notable individual appointments for the period Q1 2021. Rising Covid-19 infections at the end of last year meant the first quarter of 2021 was dominated by another strict national lockdown in the UK. Yet despite the renewed stress on economic activity, and Covid-19 hospitalisations and deaths spiking higher than the 2020 peak, December to February saw the first quarterly drop in unemployment since 2019, ONS figures revealed.

In this report, we analyse the board appointments to the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 listed companies in Q4 2020 and share a deeper analysis of the full year. We now have three full years of analysis and trends from our close monitoring of the FTSE 350 board appointments. Following our 2018 report, we have continued to publish quarterly updates allowing us to see the emerging trends, most particularly the rapid rise in the number of women in the boardrooms and that, in turn, revealed the yawning gap between the relative numbers of women in non-executive director roles and executive director roles, one of the most serious governance issues facing us.

In this report, we look at the breakdown of non-executive and executive director appointments and, as we have done in past reports, identify the trends and the individuals concerned. Our analysis again shows interesting trends. In our report for the full 2019 year, we showed the dramatic fall off in executive director appointments, essentially CEOs and CFOs, as the Brexit debate and parliamentary debacle intensified through that year. In all of 2019, there were only 69 executive director appointments at the FTSE 350 companies, compared to 119 in 2018. Looking now at the 2020 year-to-date appointments, we can see the turnaround with 73 executive director appointments already in the first 9 months.

In this report, we look at the breakdown of non-executive and executive director appointments and, as we have done in past reports, identify the trends and the individuals
concerned. In this report we also take a brief look at that most contentious and complex of boardroom issues – remuneration
– and challenge the dominance of this subject as evidenced by the fact that the Remuneration Reports of the top FTSE 100 companies average 27 pages or 45% of the Corporate
Governance Reports of those companies.

In this report, we look at the breakdown of non-executive and executive director appointments and, as we have done in past reports, list the individuals behind those numbers. We also look at the gender diversity numbers so we can continue to report on that trend. And for the first time we try to assess the impact of the Government backed Parker Review in 2017 on ethnic diversity in the UK boardrooms. Unlike gender diversity, however, ethnic diversity is not binary and so difficult to assess and, other than the Parker Review Committee, lacks the protagonists and lobbyists to beat the drum loudly enough.

I have been in the privileged position to discuss race and diversity in all its forms with many leading Chief Executives and Chairs. One thing that always struck me was their need for a safe environment. An environment where they could not only challenge me but also their own concepts of race and get a better understanding of privilege in order to make their companies more attractive, better and ultimately more profitable places to work.

Following our 2018 report, we published quarterly updates for the first three quarters of 2019. This report will look at the Q4 appointments, give a summary of the whole of 2019 and examine some of the trends we are now seeing.

There are three standout findings discussed in some more detail in this report. First, we show with absolute clarity the success of the gender diversity movement.

The average age of the non-executive directors governing the FTSE 350 companies is 59. None of them is below the age of 30 and only a handful are even in their 30s, primarily the nonindependent shareholder appointees. For the purposes of this discussion we are excluding 29 year old Cally Price who is an employee/workforce representative appointed to the Sports Direct board (more on this later). The absolute age range is 32 – 84. No one will be surprised to learn that 84% of those non-executive directors are aged between 50 and 70. One hundred and twenty-eight of them are in their 70s and six are in their 80s. The female NED’s average 57 years and the males 60.

This report reviews the FTSE 350 board appointments in the second quarter, April – June 2019 and follows our reports for the full year 2018 and Q1 2019. We again analyse the non-executive and executive director appointments to the FTSE 350 companies and explore the trends. The FTSE 100 appointments in Q2 show a particularly interesting change in direction with, on the one hand, only 28% of the non-executive appointments being women and, on the other, 100% of the executive director appointments being women.

Sport and business are often compared to one another, with good reason. In both environments, leaders seek to be top of their game. To gain a unique perspective on the experienced similarities between sport and business, and what business can learn from athletes, we recently hosted a breakfast briefing ‘From the Podium to the Boardroom’ with guest speakers Jason Gardener, Olympic Gold medallist, and Joanna Adams CEO of England Netball.

This first report for 2019 follows our analysis of the FTSE 350 board appointments in 2018 which we published in February. In that report, we pointed to a huge gap in the gender diversity achievements at the executive director level. We showed clearly that women now have more say in governance of the largest companies, but men still dominate the execution. That has not changed so far in 2019, and we didn’t expect that it would.

The first report in a new quarterly series provides an analysis of board and executive appointments within the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 in 2018. The results clearly reflect the progress of the campaign for greater gender diversity amongst non-executive directors but they also highlight the very serious gap at the executive director level.

New research finds that traditional approaches to corporate governance are too often a box-ticking exercise and a distraction from the success of UK PLC. Our research report explains why governance measures are currently failing and what could be done to improve them.