'Hire more senior women to get your bonus' says top CEO

The bonuses of City executives should be related to the amount of senior females at the firm, proposes a government-supported report.

The review of women in finance was announced by George Osborne in July as part of the government’s productivity plan. It was led by Virgin Money CEO Jayne-Anne Gadhia. Linking pay to gender balance was not the only suggestion in the preliminary report.

It also recommended that all financial service companies should publicly publish their gender diversity, as well as employing an executive whose sole responsibility is diversity.

“It should be a wake-up call to everyone in financial services that fewer women progress to senior levels than in any other industry in the UK,” says the report. “There are many views as to why that might be. Motherhood, remuneration, [and] the 'old boys' network' are all mentioned, but only scratch the surface of an issue that has been hidden for too long.”