Just 4%, or 14, chief executives at FTSE 350 companies are women, and increasing those numbers could boost the economy by almost £60bn, according to The Women Count 2022 report.
It claimed if companies with under a third of women on their executive committee performed with the same profit margin as those with over a third, an extra £58bn in pre-tax profit would be generated.
This would, on average, represent an extra £900mln in pre-tax profit for these blue-chip and mid-cap companies.
Lorna Fitzsimons and Margaret McDonagh, who co-authored the report, commented: “The real tragedy is that businesses are cutting themselves off from a pool of talent and innovation, and forgoing an additional 2.5% growth in GDP.
“It is now unarguable to state that businesses with diverse voices at the top, across gender, race and class backgrounds, do better.”
An additional £58bn to the UK economy would be roughly equivalent to the budget on schools or would entirely cover annual outgoings on defence and policing.
Three-quarters of executive committee members at Britain’s top 350 listed companies are men, with 10% of these having no women at all on their senior leadership teams.
70% of companies do not have any female executive directors at all but the government said earlier this year that they must have at least one woman in the role of chair, CEO, CFO or senior independent director by the end of 2025.
On boards that have a female CEO, the proportion of women on the board is 63% compared to 14% when the chief executive is male.
Fitzsimmons and McDonagh added: “Our message is simple: recruit, retain and promote more women.
“Don’t just talk about it, act.
“The good news is, when companies make the necessary changes towards gender equality, they often see the benefits immediately.”