The gap between men and women director's pay has narrowed, says the Intstitute of Directors. Photo / Getty
The gap between men and women director's pay has narrowed, says the Intstitute of Directors. Photo / Getty
Male non-executive directors’ fee at $44k, women’s up to $39.8k.
The pay gap between men and women who are non-executive directors is closing.
The Institute of Directors 2016 Directors' Fees Report, released today, shows the median fee for male non-executive directors has dropped to $44,000, down from $45,000 last year, while the median fee for women has increased from $37,000to $39,800. The institute recorded the overall median fee for non-executive directors was up to $42,994 from $41,610 last year.
Institute chief executive Simon Arcus said the rise was "modest" at 3 per cent. In comparison, the growth from 2014 to 2015 was 4 per cent.
Arcus said it was "really good news" to see the pay gap between male and female directors narrowing.
"It's narrowed by 10 per cent, but it's still in could-do-better territory."
The survey said 28 per cent of boards evaluated the fees of directors annually, and Arcus said this needed to improve. "If you're going to accept that directors should be well remunerated then you need to demonstrate quality. That means good board evaluation, excellent annual reports, good transparency, stakeholder relationships," he said.
Una Diver, partner at EY who assisted with the survey, said boards were critically evaluating their performance "more often and more rigorously" than ever. But evaluation of fees was not happening evenly.
"Our view is that that is probably more common in large listed entities than the smaller entities," Diver said.
