Males dominate boards of top London design companies
August 8, 2008 | Levent OZLER
The boards of London's top design companies remain male-dominated, despite the high proportion of female designers within the industry, according to newly published research.
The report, entitled London Design, is the first substantive piece of research from the Creative Industries Observatory, based at London College of Communication.
It states that, despite the high proportion of female designers in the industry, there are only eight female directors on the boards of the top design firms, compared to 102 male directors.
One of the reasons given is that many of the top 20 design firms are related to the field of construction, or are technical in nature, and more than half of all UK design businesses work in communications, digital and multimedia design - also male-dominated areas.
The software sector, for instance, has only three per cent of females on their boards of directors.
The research also notes that females on boards of directors of the top design companies in London do not hold influential positions that cross between companies.
Earlier this year, Margaret Hodge, Minister for the Creative Industries stated at a meeting of Creative Leadership Programme that the creative industries were behind other sectors in terms of equality and that a barrier existed which stopped women reaching board membership.
more: creativeindustriesobservatory.com/UserFiles/File/D (62)
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