Ireland has become one of only two European Union states to have no women leading any of its listed companies, even as it has become known for achieving rapid social change in recent decades.
Since Margaret Sweeney retired on Tuesday as chief executive Ires Reit, all 31 companies listed on Irish Stock Exchange, now known as Euronext Dublin, are led by a man.
The picture isn’t much brighter across the EU for women in leadership positions with it being common for even large stock exchanges to have less than a handful of female CEOs. Still, Ireland will be an outlier from today, now that Eddie Byrne has succeeded Sweeney as chief.
Almost every other EU country, except the small state of Luxembourg, has at least one woman at the top of a listed company, according to analysis by Bloomberg. All other member states have female CEOs, besides Slovakia, which has one company run by three directors including a woman, and Philip Morris’s Czech out posting, led by a female managing director who is set to be replaced by a man in June, according to a company statement.
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About 8 per cent of CEO positions at the largest listed companies in the EU28 in 2023 were women, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality. It’s a bleak insight into the state of gender equality in corporate Europe, and now especially in Ireland, which has become a poster child for progressing in a short stint of time.
Even in similarly-sized Scandinavian countries women are scarce in top roles, despite their progressive reputations. Sweden’s main OMX Stockholm 30 index was earlier this year left with only one female CEO among its member companies after a series of resignations among women in top roles, including fast-fashion giant H&M’s Helena Helmersson and phone carrier Telia’s Alison Kirkby. Both were replaced by men.
The lack of gender equality at the top of companies listed on the Irish exchange is exacerbated by the fact it is dominated by traditionally male-heavy industries like construction, said Gillian Harford, Ireland’s country executive at 30% Club, a campaign group that aims to increase female representation on company boards.
The picture in the US is only slightly better, with 10 per cent female CEOs on the Fortune 500 in 2023. Globally, quotas have been set for improving board diversity, although most appear not to specifically target the top job. The EU has mandated that non-executive boards of listed companies must consist of women. The US’s Nasdaq sets board targets too. In Ireland, the Government set a 33 per cent target for women on boards by the end of 2023.
“Where the represented base is already small, sustainment has to depend on succession planning, and that’s where we see the gender power gap becoming most prevalent,” Harford said. “Until we achieve constant focus on succession and gender balance across all functional roles, and remove or reduce the gender power gap it will be a challenge to maintain momentum on gender progress at CEO level.”
While there has been progress on achieving equality at board level, the lack of a female chief executive in an Irish-listed company shows there is much to be done to shatter the glass ceiling. A Government-led report from November showed female board representation stood at 39 per cent, up from 18 per cent five years earlier. That included an 8 percentage point increase in the number of women taking up chief finance officer roles.
Outside of listed companies, the burgeoning start-up scene here appears to attract more women than public companies. It was the third in Europe for investment in women-led start-ups, according to financial research firm PitchBook. Yet many of those companies have decided not to IPO in Ireland so far.
“Right along the scaling escalator we have specific strategic initiatives to support and ensure that the correct policies are in place to encourage a pipeline of strong female managers and female founders to come through the ecosystem,” said Jenny Melia, executive director at Government business agency Enterprise Ireland. “There certainly is a big focus on it here.” – Bloomberg
