A recent report by EY has shown that developing countries like India have women in only 18 per cent of board seats, but here is some good news for women abroad. After over 10 years of thought and observations, the European Union (EU) parliament has decided to adopt the "Women in Boards" Directive. Women will now have an increased presence and voice within the biggest publicly-listed companies, which can prove as inspiration for other parts of the world. Evelyn Regner, vice president of the European Parliament recently commented on this and said, “The adoption of the 'Women on Boards' Directive ten years after it was proposed is an important step forward for gender equality. We are finally giving women a fair chance to be in top corporate positions and improving corporate governance. Women are innovative, smart, strong and capable of many things.” She also added that they’re working to remove informal male networks, which are the main obstacles that prevent women from getting top jobs on the boards.
The Directive will include a number of measures to encourage transparency and accountability in the hiring process of larger companies in the EU. In these companies, at least 40 per cent of non-executive director posts or 33 per cent of all director posts must be occupied by women by the end of June 2026. In addition to this, the companies will also have to have a clear plan about how they will achieve these objectives and will have to keep information about the current gender representation in the workplace handy. If they don’t comply with this, there are effective penalties in place including annulling the board of directors if they fail to meet the rules set by the Directive.