According to a study, the number of women on the boards of listed companies in the DAX indices has more than doubled since 2020. However, there are still no women on some boards.
At the beginning of the year, 128 female managers sat on the top floors of 160 companies, as if from one Evaluation by the auditing company EY emerges. In January 2020 there were 59. However, women are still clearly in the minority; they currently sit opposite 568 board colleagues. Many of the committees are also a purely male domain. In the DAX, MDAX and SDAX stock market indices, almost four out of ten companies do not have a female manager on the board.
“Although we see a stable upward trend, the proportion of women on boards remains manageable, especially at companies that are less in the public eye,” said Ev Bangemann from EY Germany. A number of companies (49 percent) were content with appointing just one woman to the board. “It makes sense to assume that the legal minimum requirements should only be met.”
When making new appointments to the board, listed companies with equal co-determination with more than 2,000 employees and more than three board members must also ensure that there is at least one woman in the management team.
Women are most represented on DAX boards
In the second half of the year, 41 new members joined the boardrooms of the 160 companies evaluated, 16 of whom were female, which corresponds to a share of 39 percent. In the first half of the year, the proportion of women among newly appointed board members was 42 percent.
Female managers continue to be most strongly represented on the top floors of the 40 DAX companies. Almost a quarter of the board members of the German benchmark index are female (24 percent). However, no other woman has been added since summer 2023. The proportion of female board members is significantly lower in the medium-sized companies in the MDAX at 18 percent and in the smaller companies in the SDAX (14 percent).
Consumer goods industry with most women
In terms of individual industries, according to EY, female managers make up the largest proportion of the boards of directors of companies in the consumer goods industry: a quarter (25 percent) of the board members here are women. In the areas of pharmaceuticals, biotech and life sciences, telecommunications (both 23 percent), transport and logistics and the financial sector (both 20 percent), the proportion of women on boards is also significantly above average. However, it is significantly lower in the media industry (seven percent), energy suppliers (ten percent) and industry (16 percent).
At the top of the board are female managers in seven of the 160 companies, including Belén Garijo at the chemical and pharmaceutical company Merck, Helen Giza at the dialysis provider Fresenius Medical Care and Yvonne Rostock, who runs the photography service provider Cewe.