The Rise of the Female Executive

Peninah Thomson is CEO of the Mentoring Foundation, the company that owns and manages the FTSE 100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme. Peninah's early career was in the UK Foreign Office. After Doctoral studies at the University of Oxford, she joined PricewaterhouseCoopers, working for eight years in Government Services and Economics Division, and at Cabinet Office level in India, Africa, Singapore & Hong Kong. Seconded for two years to the UK Cabinet Office and to the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg, she was then promoted Director, and spent four years in PwC's Corporate Transformation Practice working at Board level in FTSE 100 companies. Peninah is an International speaker & broadcaster, and has published four books and refereed articles on women's leadership, corporate governance & business ethics. She directs the FTSE 100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme, in which 51 FTSE 100 Chairmen & CEOs mentor senior women from just below the Board to become credible Board candidates. This highly successful Programme has been running for nine years and has been emulated in France, The Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, Turkey, Australia, Hungary, Germany, the Middle East and South Africa. She is co-author of The Changing Culture of Leadership (2000); A Woman's Place is in the Boardroom (2005), A Woman's Place is in the Boardroom: The Roadmap(2008) and Women and the New Business Leadership (2011). For the last 14 years Peninah has worked exclusively as a Board level executive coach with individual male and female senior executives, and with Boards and senior teams as groups, on strategy, organisational change, and leadership. Peninah served on the Strategy Group of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. She was a member of the UK Commissioner for Public Appointment's Advisory Board, & an Advisor to the Center for Work-Life Policy, New York. 
 
Clare Laurent is an Associate with the Mentoring Foundation, where she

'This book, by Peninah Thomson and colleagues at The Mentoring Foundation, is very timely as a breakthrough is now occurring in terms of female representation on boards, and it needs to be sustained by mentoring a growing pipeline. I am delighted to see that, having set up a process with Lord Davies and his team, a voluntary approach based on the self-interest of companies in tapping into the female talent pool is now bearing fruit.'

-The Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills

"The great value of mentoring, and cross company mentoring in particular, is the opportunity to help women to better assess how to progress in their career, and to discuss issues more independently and objectively. I believe mentoring has an important role to play in helping us ensure that we fully harness the capabilities and potential of the UK's enviably large population of talented women. This wise book makes a compelling case for redoubling our efforts. Our businesses and the wider economy will be the beneficiaries.'

-António Horta Osório, Chief Executive Officer, Lloyds Banking Group plc

'FTSE 250 companies need to ensure they equip themselves to be competitive in an international marketplace as business culture evolves in the 21st century. In my time as a Chairman Mentor on the FTSE® 100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme. I believe that encouraging women to join boards is crucial to modernising organisationalculture, improving how both companies and boards function.'

-Nigel Rich CBE, Chairman, Segro plc

'In my nearly 25 years of training and development in the civil service, the last 18 months working with my mentor have been the most precious, the most interesting and the most challenging. He shifted my way of thinking; we had different sorts of conversations.'

-Sharon White, Chief Executive, Ofcom

'Our collaboration with the Mentoring Foundation has helped to