Transcorp leads in female appointments as companies strengthen boards in 2020

Transcorp Group, a publicly quoted conglomerate with strategic investments in power, hospitality, agribusiness, as well as in oil and gas sector, has made the highest number of female appointments among the listed firms that strengthened their boards in the first two months of 2020, the analysis of board appointments by BusinessDay Research and Intelligence Unit (BRIU) has revealed.

Between January and February 2020, nineteen firms effected changes in their boards, leading to the appointment of twenty-six individuals. The firms are Transcorp, Dangote Sugar, Nestle, PZ, UBA, NCR and Champions Breweries. Others are MRS, Eterna, Fidelity Bank, Unilever, Meyer and Unity Bank.

Two institutions were also appointed. The institutions are Greenwich Registrars and Alsec Nominees Limited, appointed by NCR and SPN Packaging Studio Press as their companies’ registrars’ respectively.

By gender, nine females and seventeen males were appointed to the companies’ boards during the period.

Transcorp, Transcorp Hotels and Transcorp Power, all within the Transcorp Group made six appointments out of which four were females. The individuals appointed and their portfolios included Dupe Olusola, managing director and chief executive officer of Transcorp Hotels; Helen Nwachukwu, executive director and chief operating officer of Transcorp Hotels; Owen Omogiafo, president and group chief executive officer of Transcorp; and Okaima Ohizua, executive director and chief operating officer, Transcorp Power.

Other companies that made female appointments are Dangote Sugar which appointed Temitope Hassan as the company secretary; Meyer Plc appointed Jane Ijegbulem as the company secretary; Juliet Ehimuan was appointed into the board of Nestle as an independent non-executive director, and Jacqueline Ezeokwelume was appointed by PZ as the company secretary.

Most of the female board members have first and second degrees in law, MBA while industry experience averaged 20 years.

Concerning male appointments, four are managing directors and chief executive officers. They include Georgious Polymenakos, who is now the managing director and chief executive officer of Champion Breweries; Christopher Ezeafulukwe, managing director and chief executive officer of Transcorp Power; Oliver Alawuba, CEO of UBA Africa; Carl Raymond R. Cruz, managing director and chief executive officer of Unilever while Austin Oyegha, has been appointed as the acting managing director of Global Spectrum Energy Plc.

Other male appointees are for the posts of executive directors, non-executive directors, company secretary and chief financial officer.

As gender diversity gains traction, a number of studies has been carried out to rank companies in terms of the percentage of women on their boards. According to the 2020 Women on Board and Gender Diversity Index, the report ranks companies and regions based on the percentage of board seats held by women on the Russell 3000 Index.

“Women now hold 20.4% of the board seats of R3000 companies, an increase from 17.7% in 2018. The percentage of women in the 100 largest companies is 27.7%; in the 1,000 smallest companies it is 15.7%. Fifty-two percent of R3000 companies are winning companies, with 20% or more of their board seats held by women, up from 43% in 2018. The number of zero companies(no females on board) decreased by 25% from 497 to 311 companies. Despite these improvements, 41% of R3000 companies still have one or no women on their boards”, the 2020 Gender Diversity Index Report stated.

In another study jointly carried out by Crunchbase, Him For Her, Lauren Rivera, and Kellogg School of management, they found out that only 7 percent of board seats were held by women.

“Of the 1,366 board seats across the 200 companies studied, 101 were held by women. That is just over 7 percent of board seats, compared with 20 percent for the Russell 3000 and 26 percent for the S&P 500”, the authors said.

On why larger companies are more diverse than smaller ones, the analysts attributed this phenomenon to the fact that larger companies are under scrutiny by investors, and are ready to spend more money on their search efforts while smaller companies only appoint people they know.

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