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Top contractors promise more women in boardrooms CM asks the UK’s biggest tier 1 construction firms how they plan to improve gender imbalance in senior positions
Skanska UK executive vicepresident Katy Dowding joined the firm in 2003, having previously worked for Tarmac/Carillion for 15 years. Dowding works alongside chief financial officer Kelly Gangotra, who has been with the firm since 2012. ISG chief operating officer Zoe Price leads the firm’s UK construction business, having previously served as head of public sector frameworks, helping to more than triple the revenue ISG generates from public sector frameworks within three years. Group director of strategy Mandy Willis joined Mace in 2014, having supported the board as an external commercial tax advisor for 14 years. Women now hold a third of board positions in the UK’s top public companies, according to the government-backed HamptonAlexander review, released in February 2020. This means that the top construction contractors in the UK, on average, are five percentage points down on the average across all boardrooms among the top 350 UK listed companies. The Hampton-Alexander review also highlighted how women in boardrooms are over-represented in some roles and under-represented in others. They made up only 15% of finance directors, compared with 66% of human resources directors. ●
“The mode average proportion of women on the contractors’ boards was 25%”
Women on the boards of major contractors include (from top): Mandy Willis, Mace; Katy Dowding, Skanska UK; Kelly Gangotra, Skanska UK; Amanda Fisher, Amey; Zoe Price, ISG
SOLK
The UK’s biggest construction contractors have vowed to boost the proportion of women in senior roles, as research by CM showed that on average women occupy just over a quarter (28%) of board-level positions at the firms. Among the 10 biggest firms by turnover in 2020, the proportion of women on the board of directors ranged from 12.5% at its lowest level, to 43% in the case of ISG, where three women and four men make up its statutory board. The mode average proportion of women on the contractors’ boards was 25% – with Balfour Beatty, Mace, Laing O’Rourke and Amey all reporting that women occupied a quarter of the most senior positions in their companies. At Kier, Skanska UK and Morgan Sindall, that figure was 29% (two out of seven in all three cases). Meanwhile two out of six members of Galliford Try’s board are women, and one out of its six-strong executive team. At Interserve Construction, one woman sits on the board out of eight attendees. Among prominent female figures at the contractors are Amey chief executive Amanda Fisher. Fisher is a former army officer and former managing director of Balfour Beatty Living Places. She was appointed as chief executive of Amey in December 2019, having been managing director of facilities management, defence and justice at Amey since 2017. 6 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER MARCH 2021
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16/02/2021 10:04
