Not just social, having more women CEOs has economic benefits too

One study found that companies in the top quartile for gender and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above the industry average

Female CEOs of large firms are a rare breed. In the US in 2015, there were more CEOs called John running big companies in the US than women. In 2016, there were only six female CEOs in the firms covered by the FTSE 100 index and 12 in the FTSE 250 index. In the FTSE 100, there were only four women chairs, 185 women on the executive committee out of 991 positions, and 283 board members out of 1,065 positions.

There is a similar, but not as stark, underrepresentation in the UK public sector. For example, I recently published a report