Diageo leads the FTSE 100 for representation of women on boards in the Cranfield School of Management Female FTSE Board Report.

Diageo celebrates its commitment to championing gender diversity as its strong credentials on diverse leadership are recognised in the 2018 Female FTSE Board Report by Cranfield School of Management.

In the UK, 32 companies in the FTSE100 have reached the target of 33% of women on their boards by the end of 2020, according to the Cranfield Female FTSE Board Report. Topping the list is prime employer, Diageo, with 55% of women on their board, followed by Whitbread, Hargreaves Lansdown, GlaxoSmithKline and Royal Dutch Shell.;

“At Diageo we firmly believe that diverse and inclusive businesses perform better, so I am very proud that we are once again at the top of the Cranfield Female FTSE Board Report. This year our Board achieved gender parity, our Executive Committee is made up of 40% women and we have ambitious goals to increase the number of female leaders across our business,” said Mairead Nayager, Chief Human Resources Officer at Diageo commenting on the findings of the report.

Mairead Nayager, Chief Human Resources Officer at Diageo cites that the company has ambitious goals to increase the number of female leaders across their business.

Leading the way out of the gender pay gap 

And, with Diageo's strong commitment to gender diversity, they are one of the top two companies that have a substantial percentage of women at all levels, which has a positive impact on low gender pay gaps, at just 4.1%. 

According to the report, the different median hourly rate between men and women at Diageo is -9.8, in favour of women. The percentage of women in the four quartiles varies from 39% at the bottom to 56%, to 55.9% to 42.7% at the top. Diageo has actually reversed the typical gendered pipeline effect.

Long-term commitment to gender eqaulity by Diageo

Diageo has long been committed to advancing gender equality within the workplace and beyond, and we have a clear ambition to deliver more.

We have undertaken the following work in order to achieve this:

• Our ambition is to have our senior leadership team 35% female by 2020, with an increase to 40% by 2025
• All our graduate programmes and our mid-career development programmes ensure they have an equal intake of women and men to attract, retain and grow the best talent. For example, we are committed to ensuring that 50% of hires to our global graduate programme are women
• Through our talent management programme we frequently move people around the world – from our Executive level through to our graduates – so that people bring multi-market and multi-cultural experiences back to their everyday roles.

In January 2018 Diageo was recognised by the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for performance and disclosure around gender equality and Diageo was also ranked fifth in the Thomson Reuters Global Diversity and Inclusion Index. Additionally, our CEO Ivan Menezes has been recognised by Management Today as an Agent of Change, pushing for gender parity in the workplace.

Join talented women at Diageo 

As an inclusive employer with diversity at the very top of the agenda, Diageo is keen to attract passionate and dedicated candidates from the widest talent pools around the world. Operating in 180 countries, Diageo has opportunities for candidates to join a team of more than 30,400 people who help grow their thriving business.

Professor Sue Vinnicombe comments on the disparity between the number of women being appointed to boards, yet not being appointed to senior positions.

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