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Few
women directors hold seats in the board rooms of South Africa's
largest companies. Only 5.8% (179) of 3,087 board directorships
in the Top 300 companies are held by women.
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Among the Top 300 companies, those owned by the government have
greater representation of women on theirs boards (20%) than the
publicly-listed companies (4.3%). They also average more board
seats held by women (4 per board) than publicly-held companies
(1-2 per board).
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A
little over a third (37.7%) of South Africa's 300 largest
companies have female directors. The majority (62.3%) of these
companies do not have women holding corporate board seats.
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South African Broadcasting Corporation ranks first among the Top
300 companies in the number of women on its board – 5 out of 12
(41.7%)
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Among publicly-listed companies, Rentsure Holdings Ltd. has the
highest percentage of women board directors – 33.3% (2 out of 6
board seats)
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Among the companies that do have women on their boards, the
majority (63.7%) only have single seats for women. Overall, most
South African companies are not yet ready to have more than one
woman on their board.
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The
179 women-held corporate board directorships in the Top 300
companies are actually claimed by only 140 individuals, since
25% hold multiple directorships. Five women hold four or more
board seats: Dr. Danisa Baloyi, Elizabeth le R. Bradley, Irene
Charnley, Hixonia Nyasulu, and Prof. Louise Tager.
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A
comparison with other countries that have data on women's
representation on the boards of each country's major
corporations shows the United States at 11.1%; Australia at
10.7%; followed by Canada at 9.1%; then South Africa at 5.8%;
the United Kingdom at approximately 5% and Japan at 0.2%.
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80%
of the 500 largest companies in the United States now have at
least one woman corporate director, compared to only 37.7% of
South Africa's Top 300 publicly-listed and government-owned
companies having female board directors.
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To
order a copy of the report, which includes a company listing of
women board directors and tables with data indicating the
business areas and industries with the largest representation of
women directors, see
order form.
