Executive Women in the Workplace Inquiry Building the Executive Pipeline of Talent EVIDENCE Mary Macleod MP and Dr Thérèse Coffey MP Conservative Women’s Forum Sponsored by June 2013 Contents Contents Corrected Oral Evidence - Session 1 .........................................................3 Monday 21st January 2013 Nigel Whitehead, Group MD Programmes & Support, BAE Systems PLC Marjorie Strachan, Group Talent, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC Anna Fullerton-Batten, Talent Acquisition Lead, UK Staffing Team, Microsoft Corrected Oral Evidence - Session 2 ...................................................... 26 Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Kate Grussing, MD, Sapphire Partners Karoline Vinsrygg, Consultant, Egon Zehnder International Charlotte Crosswell, CEO, Nasdaq OMX NLX Rebecca Salt, Group Communications Director, Balfour Beatty PLC Jill May, former MD, UBS Corrected Oral Evidence - Session 3 ...................................................... 62 Wednesday 30th January 2013 Dr Heather McGregor, MD, Taylor Bennett Dominique Hainebach, MD, Renew Partners Ruby McGregor-Smith CBE, CEO, MITIE PLC N. James Charrington, Senior MD & Chairman EMEA, BlackRock Inc. Dr Nigel Wilson, CEO, Legal and General Group PLC Corrected Oral Evidence - Session 4 ...................................................... 94 Thursday 31st January 2013 Helena Morrissey CBE, Founder, 30% Club; CEO, Newton Investment Management Amanda Mackenzie, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Aviva PLC Peninah Thomson OBE, CEO, Mentoring Foundation Dr Emily Lawson, Partner & Co-author of Women Matter series, McKinsey & Co Ama Afrifa-Kyei, Advisor, Employee Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion, Deloitte LLP Louise Brett, Partner, Consulting, Deloitte LLP Corrected Oral Evidence - Session 5 ....................................................125 Thursday 7th February 2013 Alison Carnwath, Non-Executive Chairman, Land Securities PLC; Senior Advisor, Evercore Jo Swinson MP, Minister for Women and Equalities 1 Executive Women in the Workplace Inquiry Written Evidence: Submission 1 ............................................................151 Dr Heather McGregor, MD, Taylor Bennett Written Evidence: Submission 2 ............................................................153 Cynthia Carroll, former CEO, Anglo American Written Evidence: Submission 3 ............................................................157 Jackie Hunt, CFO, Standard Life Written Evidence: Submission 4 ............................................................161 Heather Jackson, CEO, An Inspirational Journey Written Evidence: Submission 5 ............................................................164 Helen Owers, former Executive, Thomson Reuters Written Evidence: Submission 6 ............................................................166 Dominique Hainebach, MD, Renew Partners 2 Corrected Oral Evidence- Session 1 Corrected Oral Evidence- Session 1 Monday 21st January 2013 Members Present: Mary Macleod MP (Chair) Dr Thérèse Coffey MP Caroline Dinenage MP Andrea Leadsom MP Witnesses: Nigel Whitehead, Group MD Programmes & Support, BAE Systems PLC Marjorie Strachan, Group Talent, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC Anna Fullerton-Batten, Talent Acquisition Lead, UK Staffing Team, Microsoft Evidence: Nigel Whitehead, Group MD Programmes & Support, BAE Systems PLC Marjorie Strachan, Group Talent, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC Anna Fullerton-Batten, Talent Acquisition Lead, UK Staffing Team, Microsoft Thérèse Coffey: Can I just say thank you very much for agreeing to come along, it is very kind of you to do so. We are all parliamentarians. Shall we all just introduce ourselves? Caroline Dinenage: Hello I’m Caroline, MP for Gosport. Thérèse Coffey: I’m Thérèse Coffey. My background is that I worked for twelve years for Mars, one of the largest privately owned businesses, and half the board is women. That is just a family, an unusual situation, I appreciate that, but it does not include the executive management team, that is where there are fewer women involved. Mary Macleod: I’m Mary Macleod, MP in West London, and I spent twenty years or so in the city in consulting in the financial services, investment banking and retail banking. I’ve spent a lot of time in the past either looking at getting more women into parliament, or as a business, looking at diversity generally in trying to get more women up through the pipeline, but in parliament also getting more women into parliament. Actually also – and I am so excited about tomorrow, because we have got the succession bill coming before us tomorrow. I wrote in 1999 that I felt females should have the right to succeed to the throne, so I am very excited about that. I think in all different respects I am trying to push the female agenda, which to me is all about equality and fairness, and making sure that women can achieve their potential just like men do. Andrea Leadsom: Absolutely. I’m Andrea Leadsom, MP for South Northamptonshire. I had 25 years in finance, including 11 years in Barclays, two years in a hedge fund, and ten years in Invesco Perpetual, a big funds management company. Also 13 years as Chairman and Trustee of 3 Executive Women in the Workplace Inquiry a children’s charity out in Oxfordshire, so both in the voluntary sector and in the banking sector, and again very much dominated in the banking sector by men. Women tended to fall along the wayside, and it has always been a bit of a mystery to me as to why that is. It is not a complete mystery, but I think a lot can and should be done to make it easier for women to go in and out of their careers. Rather than have a fabulous career, have a baby as late as possible, and then effectively be written off for the rest of their working life. Which is what happens, sometimes by choice, but very often just because employers think you if you are over 40, then you are over the hill, and you can’t possibly now aspire to come in at a middle level and achieve great things. I think there are some structural issues, particularly for women who have children. Q1 Thérèse Coffey: In a nutshell then, this is a crowded space in terms of people talking about women on boards and quotas, which we don’t particularly want. We decided to focus on a particular area, which is how do we get more executive women onto boards? For us, that is often the pipeline of talent. Can I kick off with asking, could you outline how your company goes about its appointment process to executive positions of a senior nature? Do you have particular measures as part of that to try and get gender diversity in it? Do you want to kick off, Nigel? Nigel Whitehead: Okay. It is an issue which we take very seriously and I am pleased to be able to talk about it. It starts at the very top, our managerial executives who are absolutely committed to the issue. As recently as the middle of last year, the chairman was able to explain to our AGM that we had achieved our 25% aspirational target for our board. Indeed our executive committee achieved the same, 25% average as well, which is a very strong signal not just externally, but also within the company, and we also report on the initiatives in line with the changed Corporate Governance Code as of October last year. Having said that, we respect the fact that as a business we are tapping into the defence and aerospace market as it exists in the US. As a global entity we have access to a global market, and from that perspective we have two North American women on our board and executive committee. If you look at the UK part, and I am responsible for UK businesses, we have to ask the question, “is that sustainable?” The immediate answer to that is no. In fact if I mention the nature of our challenge, this problem, for decades engineering businesses have not attracted a proportionate number of women into their businesses. Today our starting point is only 14% of women in our business. It employs over 38,000 people in the UK, only 14% are women. If you look at the number of women coming out of engineering programmes, engineering degrees in the UK, it is about 12%. Notionally we match the pipeline, in terms of the foundation of our company. We think for the 12% we have to look at the further education system. But what are we doing about it? If we look at the 14% we have in the company it is unacceptably low, and we are driven by the simple concept that we actually need better positions in our commerce teams. We have intuitive experience that tells us that. We also have some of the available research and data that underpins that. So we fundamentally believe in sustainability. Just to further define the problem, although the headline is 25% at the top, the reality is that we have a disproportionate drop-off of women representation as we get towards the higher levels, so we have as it were a hole in the management pipeline. A simple question, “how do we recruit to the board?” is more of a challenge than it appears from a distance, so what are we doing about it? Since 2005, we have been running a school roadshow where we have been trying to inspire the next generation. We have actors – it is a theatrical performance – the centre figure of whom is a woman, a young woman who is better at science and engineering than the guys around her. So it is fun, it is dramatic, and measure the impact. We inspire over 25,000 schoolchildren in the UK each year. 85% of those who see the theatrical performance say, “this is great, I would like to do engineering as a result.” The big issue is actually the perception of girls who see the show. Why do we target the age group of 9 to 13 year olds? Because science and maths are difficult when 4 Corrected Oral Evidence- Session 1 you are doing GCSEs, and some people are just scared at that stage, and see no reason to do it. We target that. We target our apprenticeships, we target undergraduates in the same way. We also invest throughout the careers of our target population.