Egon Zehnder announces female CFO drive

FTSE 100 businesses have been challenged to diversify their CFO recruitment policy by advisory firm Egon Zehnder.

The executive search business is seeking to ensure a quarter of FTSE 100 CFOs are women by 2025 by overhauling their recruitment process and talent management both internally and externally.

At present, there are 11 female CFOs in the FTSE 100 – rising to 23 if you take in the FTSE 350 and count one acting CFO. More widely, women make up approximately 22.6% of FTSE 100 boards, up from 15.6% in 2012.

However, that is primarily at non-executive level, and in executive roles the figure is starker, languishing below 8%.

Indeed, some sectors have even gone backwards, with banking and financial services falling from its 11th position in the ranking of industries best representing women, to 23rd.

Ça?la Bekbölet, who leads Egon Zehnder’s global financial officers’ practice, said: “We want to facilitate the appointment of 25 women CFOs by 2025. Part of that is helping our clients understand the value of gender diversity when they go for an external search, but equally important is helping them identify and help develop their talented women in their finance function to create that option for succession when the right time comes.”