London:
Tesco Chairman John Allan backtracked on his comments about the disadvantages for white men in corporate boardrooms as critics urged greater diversity of the retailer’s directors and some shoppers said they would boycott the UK’s biggest supermarket chain.
“The point I was seeking to make was that successful boards must be active in bringing together a diverse and representative set of people,” Allan said Saturday in a statement on Tesco’s website. “There is still much more to be done but now is a good time for women to put themselves forward for non-executive director roles.”
Allan, speaking at a conference in London on Thursday, said white men were an “endangered species” on corporate boards and had to “work twice as hard.” Appearing on a panel about aspiring non-executive directors, he said women with an ethnic background were “in an extremely propitious period.” Allan later said the comments were meant to be funny.
Investors and government officials are demanding greater diversity in company management, as women still tend to hold fewer senior positions and earn less money than their male counterparts. Recruiter Egon Zehnder said 29 per cent of directors appointed in the UK last year were female, the lowest level since 2012. Tesco’s board of directors has 11 members, nine of whom are white men.
Boardroom gender representation at the retailer may be addressed at Tesco’s annual general meeting, said Oliver Parry, head of corporate governance policy at the Institute of Directors.
“You won’t find many investors that don’t want a more diverse board,” he said, referring to Tesco. “Companies have got to be more representative of the societies in which they operate.”
Allan said that he has always been an advocate for diversity and regrets if his remarks “have given the opposite impression.”
Comments about diversity and industry can be perilous for corporate executives. Kevin Roberts, former executive chairman of Publicis Groupe SA’s Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, resigned in August after he told Business Insider the debate about gender diversity in advertising was “over,” touching off a firestorm. Publicis chairman placed Roberts on leave a day after the article was published and issued a statement saying that his comments didn’t uphold the company’s policy.
After Allan’s comments at the Retail Week conference appeared Saturday in UK newspapers, Women’s Equality party leader Sophie Walker tweeted “ #BoycottTesco” on Saturday. Women “are a long way for endangering men’s dominance of boardrooms,” Walker told The Guardian. “I plan on doing my shopping elsewhere this weekend.”
The call for a boycott comes as the retailer is recovering from the effects of an accounting scandal and as it seeks to bring back customers who defected to discounters Aldi and Lidl after it raised prices to protect profit margins during the global financial crisis.
