The number of FTSE 100 company directors from ethnic minority backgrounds has declined in the past year, according to a progress report delivered by the government-backed campaign to boost boardroom diversity. Just 84 of the 1,048 director positions in the 100 biggest companies on the London Stock Exchange are held by a business leader from an ethnic minority, down from 85 last year, in the latest sign of stalling progress to make big companies more representative of the country at large...

Elon Musk has come to his senses and apologised for his ugly and baseless slur against a British cave explorer who played a key role in the rescue in Thailand. The Tesla founder couldn’t resist taking a final dig at Vernon Unsworth – he said the diver had told “several untruths and suggested I engage in a sexual act with the mini [submarine]” – but at least Musk acknowledged he has nobody to blame but himself. “The fault is mine and mine alone,” he said in a tweet...

In 2013, the California state senator Hanna-Beth Jackson made a certain amount of feminist history when she authored – and the legislature enacted – a first-in-the-nation resolution urging the state’s publicly held companies to appoint more women to their boards of directors. The resolution endorsed research finding that companies with women on their boards perform better than those without, and encouraged corporations to add at least one and as many as three women to their boardrooms...

ShareAction campaigners claim company strategy appears ‘misaligned’ with climate change threat but another successful revolt deemed unlikely Unlike Shell, BP has been criticised for not removing oil and gas production targets from its pay policy...

AstraZeneca has suffered another shareholder revolt over executive pay, with two-fifths opposing a £13m package for its chief executive. Nearly 39% of investors voted against the pharmaceutical group’s 2016 remuneration report at its annual meeting in London, similar to the rebellion it faced three years ago . Support for the new pay policy was much stronger, with 96% of investors backing it...

D espite the fears of Tesco chair John Allan that men are becoming an “ endangered species ” in boardrooms, the majority of UK company directors are still male and pale.

And while women’s presence in the boardroom has grown over the past four years, according to our research at the Directory of Social Change , their positions tend to be non-executive and it’s still a rare company that has a female chair or CEO...

If you’re a senior woman in Silicon Valley then 2017 is shaping up to be a lucrative year. The New York Times reports that recruiters have been wooing women in the sector – with some senior women turning down up to 20 board invitations. More and more companies are now choosing to publish their diversity figures, and if the numbers stay the same each year it starts to get a little embarrassing. So in a bid to keep their clients happy, recruiters are finally actively searching for female candidates...

Sweden’s parliament has rejected plans to introduce legislation that would fine listed companies who fail to appoint women to at least 40% of board seats. The leftwing government announced in September that it was drafting the legislation, but the centre-right opposition and a far-right party, which together hold a majority in parliament, told parliament’s law review committee on Thursday that they would not support the project...

Executive pay has become too high and risks damaging the reputation of big business, according an influential fund management group which has drawn up ideas for reform that could reduce the overall remuneration package of top bosses. Hermes Investment Managment published a paper that showed that the average pay of a chief executive could be cut ...

Whatever Wells Fargo is selling, Congress is not buying it. “Your bank was turned into a school for scoundrels,” New York congresswoman Carolyn Maloney told the chief executive, John Stumpf, at his second grilling in Washington in as many weeks. Stumpf was quizzed by the House financial committee for over four hours on Thursday about his staff opening two million unauthorized accounts ...

Many companies, particularly smaller ones, will tell you they exist for their employees and customers, as much as for shareholder gains. Yet those who want to serve a wider base of stakeholders may find themselves hamstrung by a legal system that appears to put shareholder interests centre stage. ....

You’d be forgiven for thinking it all sounds a bit wishy-washy, but corporate responsibility and sustainability are increasingly serious issues to businesses, and the wider public, apparently. Research suggests that up to 60% of consumers would pay more for environmentally or socially responsible products. Interestingly, the proportion of people who actually pay more for these products is significantly lower ...

Two major fund management firms have backed an influential shareholder group in publicly criticising corporate governance at Sports Direct and demanding change at the top of the retail group....

he message is clear. Gone are the days of laissez-faire, when Conservative industry secretaries thought it was their job to get out the way and allow free rein to market forces. Sajid Javid, an adherent to that philosophy, was shown the door in May’s reshuffle after an undistinguished year in the job. Clark’s rebadged department is a tacit admission that the rebalancing of the economy promised by George Osborne when he became chancellor six years ....

S o farewell, Kevin Roberts. The Saatchi & Saatchi executive chairman resigned last week after giving an interview to Business Insider that was so riddled with sexism and complacency it is difficult to pick out a particular soundbite. To summarise, Roberts said that there was no problem with sexual discrimination at Saatchi & Saatchi and that some women, and men, were looking just to be happy in life rather than climb up the ranks of a company....

“There is apparently no end yet in sight for the rise and rise of chief executive pay packages,” said the centre’s director, Stefan Stern. “In spite of the occasional flurry from more active shareholders, boards continue to award ever larger amounts of pay to their most senior executives ...

Career choices Five signs you are applying for your dream (or nightmare) job Culture is an important part of a job, but it’s hard to predict what it will be like before you start. Here’s how to find out if the role is right for you You can’t predict whether a role is going to be right for you, so it’s crucial to look at the company as a whole....

Over 70 banks and City firms to link bonuses to senior jobs for women Companies including Lloyds and Barclays sign up to women and finance charter to end male-dominated executive teams. Jayne-Anne Gadhia, CEO of Virgin Money, found women made up 23% of boards at City firms but only 14% of executive committees ...

One issue has been moving company news from the business section to the front page: executive pay. Companies continue to announce compensation packages for their top managers that leave people agape, not just because the gap between companies’ highest- and lowest-paid workers is so wide, but also because the compensation bears so little relation to firms’ performance ...

all of whom emphasise their commitment to cost-cutting in less sensitive fields than boardroom rewards. Willie Walsh, the boss of British Airways’ owner IAG, earned £6.4m in 2014 and Michael O’Leary, of Ryanair, earned around £1.6m. However ...

Irene Lee and Pauline van der Meer Mohr as non-executive directors. They do not directly replace any individuals on the board, which will now have 19 members. But Rona Fairhead, the former Pearson executive who chairs the BBC Trust, is to leave before next May. Her role has been in focus following revelations that HSBC’s Swiss arm helped customers evade tax because she chaired the bank’s audit and risk committee at the time the scandal took place...

McDonald’s has been accused of “trying to hide from public scrutiny” by banning the media from this week’s shareholder meeting, which staff have promised to gatecrash with...

JP Morgan shareholders have regularly clashed with management over executive pay and governance. The vote on pay at the annual meeting in New York is non-binding. ISS also advised shareholders to vote to install an independent chairman at the bank...

Powers outside the boardroom more important for gender equality in business than quotas, new research reveals Women are more likely to be promoted to company boardrooms in countries where they hold greater economic and political power, according to research that highlighted the limited ability of quotas to give women more sway in business. Women’s economic power, as measured by years of ...