30% Club Southern Africa
program development
south africa
An international group of Chairmen, CEOs and senior partners of private sector organisations that are committed to bringing more women onto boards because they believe it’s good for the overall effectiveness of the boardroom – and therefore good for business. Focus is also placed on the pipeline development to create sustainable change. The aim is to achieve or sustain the goal of 30% women on boards within five years of the organisation publicly committing to making the commitment. • This is business-led, voluntary change, in contrast to the pressures placed on corporates by legislation. • The campaign has achieved notable success in a relatively short period of time internationally. The 30% Club was launched in the UK in November 2010 with 7 founding Chairmen supporters. At that point, 12.5% of FTSE-100 board directors were women and that figure had plateaued for 4 years. • The Club in the UK now has over 80 leaders supporting the initiative and the number of women on FTSE-100 boards has topped the 20% mark. There is now only one FTSE 100 company without a single female director. A confluence of factors have driven the breakthrough on non-executive director appointments in the UK: the leadership shown by the UK’s top company chairmen; the Davies Review’s ten clear recommendations ; the collaborative and non-commercial nature of the 30% Club; broad political support and constructive sustained media attention. We are of the opinion that with collaboration of international companies and chambers, investors, executive search companies and media, we would be able to achieve similar results in southern Africa.
