EJE&CON, the Spanish Association of Executives and Board Members, warns of the dangers posed by the deadline – this June – for implementing the Gender Parity Act on the IBEX 35, by which time at least 40 per cent of non-executive directors must be women.
They point out that “the data show uneven progress. The IBEX 35 already stands at around 41–42 per cent female representation on its boards, whilst the rest of listed companies remain at lower levels (36–37 per cent) and large unlisted companies barely reach 19.6 per cent”.
However, they point out that “the requirement, derived from Directive (EU) 2022/2381 and its transposition into Organic Law 2/2024, is not limited to the composition of boards. It requires a change in selection processes, which must be objective, transparent and free from bias, giving priority to the under-represented gender on an equal footing”. Thus, in their view, there is “a growing risk to the Spanish business landscape: achieving the targets without having transformed the model of access to power within organisations”.
According to the association, “in many companies, progress towards parity is relying on a small group of female board members who hold multiple terms of office, which limits the actual expansion of the available talent pool and delays the renewal of the system. Added to this is another worrying trend: the decline in the presence of women in senior management, which has fallen to 18.5 per cent by 2026, thereby jeopardising the pipeline needed to sustain change on boards”.
