The Mentoring Foundation was founded specifically for the purpose of developing the already highly successful FTSE100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme, which is directed by Peninah Thomson. Many leading companies and public bodies have already placed mentees with the Programme.
13 March 2012:
“The Mentoring Foundation welcomes the progress reported in Cranfield’s 2012 Female FTSE Report. Women-held directorships have risen to 15.6% from a 3-year plateau of 12%, and 141 women are now holding 163 FTSE 100 Board positions (out of a total of 1,086). It’s also good news that 47 new appointments (of 190) were women.
But there is no room for complacency; particularly since – as the Report points out – there is an increasingly wide gap between the number of female NEDs (143 women; 22.4%) and executive directors (20 women; 6.6%). Companies which are serious about identifying their talented women and accelerating their progress will be paying a lot of attention to that last percentage: it is far too small and does not adequately reflect the talent and ability that is present in the female workforce. Companies with insight will be seeking to develop a robust “pipeline” of women with high potential, actively developing them in order to increase the rate of their progression to the senior executive grades.
The FTSE 100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme is playing its part in helping companies develop their senior women. 53 companies have placed Mentees in the Programme, enabling them to be mentored by the Chairmen and CEOs of some of the UK’s most iconic companies.
The mentoring provided by these Chairmen and CEOs is enabling talented women to become credible candidates for executive and non-executive directorships, and enabling them to “take their seat at the table”; playing a meaningful part at a strategic level and – by doing so – contributing to the UK’s economic recovery.”
4 November 2011:
Peninah Thomson attended the Home Secretary’s speech on Women and the Economy. See our news section.
What Women Need to Advance: Sponsorship – Article by forbes.com on Peninah Thomson’s book: WOMEN AND THE NEW BUSINESS LEADERSHIP
Peninah Thomson at number 10 Downing Street on 12 October (click here to read full story):
“Mentoring helps both mentors and mentees by building professional relationships between high potential female executives and the senior decision-makers who appoint directors; and by guiding mentees in developing their careers. It increases the ‘available’ talent pool of potential female directors. More than two-thirds of the women in the FTSE100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme have achieved significant career advancement since joining our Programme.”
The tangible objectives of the report, produced by Lord Davies of Abersoch, published on 24 February 2011, are clear: quoted companies should set targets to increase the number of women on their boards, and establish a timetable for progress.
Lord Davies proposes that FTSE 100 companies, on which 12.5% of board positions are currently held by women, should aim to double that proportion to 25% by 2015, and that from March 2011 at least a third of all new FTSE 350 board appointments should be women. No target has been set for FTSE 250 companies. Since they are starting from a position in 2010 when just 7.8% of their board positions are held by women, it would not be reasonable to expect them to reach 25% by 2015. The clear implication, though, is that these companies, just as much as the FTSE 100, should focus intently on moving this particular needle on the dial.
One implication of this, therefore, is that companies are going to need to focus hard on identifying and developing a robust internal ‘pipeline’ of talented women. Buying in talent from outside the company is a fix: a perfectly respectable one, but a fix nonetheless: and one which should be augmented by a systematic programme of development for women within the organisation who are identified as being of high potential. The Mentoring Foundation has been established specifically with the aim of expanding The FTSE 100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme in order to support companies in developing such a ‘pipeline’.