Tesco risks Cable’s wrath as two women step down from board
TWO OF Tesco’s three female board members are leaving the troubled supermarket.
Jacqueline Tammenoms Bakker, who has been a director for six years, will retire at the end of Tesco’s financial year, which is on Saturday.
Olivia Garfield is stepping down at the same time, after nearly two years at Tesco, to concentrate fully on her role as the chief executive of Severn-Trent, which she took up last April.
Tesco chairman Sir Richard Broadbent said: “Tesco would like to put on record its appreciation for the dedicated and unstinting contribution of all its directors during a time of unprecedented challenge.”
The departures leave just one woman – Deanna Oppenheimer – remaining on a board of 12 people, which could place the retailer in the government’s bad books if they are not replaced. Business secretary Vince Cable has been championing greater diversity in Britain’s biggest companies.
Earlier this month he named and shamed firms that were below a target that a quarter of board members be women.
Even prior to Bakker and Garfield stepping down, Tesco was not meeting that target, and at 21 per cent, it was just behind the FTSE 100 average of 22.8 per cent.