Women in hospitality boardrooms: More needs to be done, says HVS Executive Search

In the wake of International Women's Day, Chris Mumford, HVS Executive Search president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said tokenism was not the answer but women needed to be encouraged to have ambitions of reaching board level and helped to meet those ambitions.

“Our recent European Hotel Board study showed that just 10 per cent of board members are women. We want to see women occupy at least a third of board room positions in this sector and considering the industry has a strong percentage of female employees at lower levels, it’s vital that their skills, knowledge and experience aren’t lost when it comes to moving into top level management," he said.

Last week Vivien Sirotkin, director of hotel operations at QHotels, told BigHospitality a 'macho culture' still existed in hospitality presenting women who wanted to progress with difficulties.

Last year HVS Executive Search held a briefing in London to discuss what prevented women from rising through the ranks. The briefing, which is available to view on YouTube and will be followed up with a round-table discussion this year that will form the basis of a white paper, featured a panel that included Jillian Maclean, founder and managing director of Drake & Morgan bars. Maclean featured in a BigHospitality video to mark International Women's Day​.