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said. "Three out of our seven board direc- tors are women." Compared to last year, when 46% of the top 100 companies had at least one woman on their board, this year that figure rose to 58%. In June, Glencore ended its position as the last remaining company on the London Stock Exchange's 100 companies to have an all-male board when it appoint- ed Patrice Merrin, former CEO of Sherritt, as a director. According to the study, females are more likely to hold non-executive board positions, which account for 85% of all female positions within the top 500 com- panies, and they are nearly half as likely to be executives as males within the top 500 companies. However, this is consistent over all industries, the report stated. As for executive and senior manage- ment positions, in the top 500 mining companies, that percentage is 11.5%, compared with just 7.2% of women repre- sented on boards. In the 101-500 compa- nies, women fill 11.7% of executive man- agement positions, which is higher than the 10.6% for the top 100, the report said. The types of positions these women held were also looked into. In the top 100 min- ing companies, women are employed in a wide range of roles, and 62% work in oper- ations, legal and finance. For the top 500 companies, South Africa took the lead with the highest proportion of women in executive management, with 21.4%, followed by Hong Kong with 15.1%, Canada with 13.7%, the U.K. with 10.5%, U.S. with 9.4%, China with 9.1% and Australia being the worst with 8.7%. In Hong Kong and China, there were more women in executive management positions in the smaller companies, top 101-500, than the larger ones. According to the report, in South Africa, legislation has resulted in a much larger number of women in executive management and on boards than the other exchanges. "The Companies Act in South Africa was amended in 2009, making it mandatory for the companies to disclose how board diver- sity is considered and the percentage of female employees in workforce and senior management," the report said. Within the top 100 companies analyzed in the report, Australia has six, including BHP Billiton, and within those companies 12.5% of directorships are held by women. Australia also has 70 companies within the top 101-500, and among those, women hold 5.4% of directorships. Key Findings One of the key findings in this report was the effect the number of women on a board had on a company's performance. According to the report, return on assets range from -2.86% for all-male boards, -0.88% for one woman on the board, and +6.40% for boards with two or more women. "Women on boards in the mining indus- try are correlated with higher profit mar- gins, higher return on assets and higher average enterprise value/reserves," van Dyke said. "What this means is that not only do women seem to have an effect on making companies more profitable with the resources they have, but also the mar- ket values companies with women on boards higher than they value mining com- panies with all male boards." The report stated, "this means that on average, for every £1 invested in a busi- ness, those with all male boards have a loss of 2% on their investment and those with two or more women make a return of 6% on their investment." Often, having just one woman on the board did not lead to better results for the company, and sometimes it lead to nega- tive results, van Dyke said. "There is the possibility that just one woman was a token, or that alone she is not able to have the effect on performance." However, having two or more did seem to affect performance. Van Dyke speculat- ed as to why this was the case and thought AUGUST 2014 • E&MJ; 59 www.e-mj.com W O M E N I N M I N I N G According to the report, the return on assets for the top 500 companies increases when more women are on the board. South Africa ranks at the top of the countries examined with the most females in executive management.