Barclays picks three more women directors

Barclays Bank Kenya has appointed three women as non-executive directors, raising to half the female representation on the bank’s board.

The lender which is set to release its half-year results today, has appointed Laila Macharia, Winnie Ouko and Norah Odwesso to its board, bringing to five, the number of women in the 10-member board. Their appointment comes at a time when the issue of women participation in business leadership has caught the attention of policy makers at the Nairobi bourse.

The capital markets regulator has been pushing for appointment of more women to boardrooms, arguing that they enhance quality of board decisions. State corporations are required to ensure at least a third of board members are from either gender.

“Barclays continues to be at the forefront of promoting diversity and inclusion not just at the leadership levels but throughout the organisation by creating an environment that recognises employee diversity,” said Jeremy Awori, Barclays Kenya MD in a statement.

Prior to the appointment of the three, the lender’s board had seven members, with Rose Ogega and Jane Karuku being the only female non-executive directors. Ms Macharia is the founder and CEO of Africa Metro, a pan-African investment company and the current vice chairperson of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa).

Ms Ouko is the co-founder and a director at Lattice Consulting Limited, a corporate finance and strategy advisory firm while Ms Odwesso is the public affairs and communications director at Coca-Cola Central, East and West Africa.

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Brown Ondego, the vice chairman of Rift Valley Railways, Ashok Shah (CEO of Apollo Investments) and Francis Okomo-Okello (the bank’s chairman) complete the list of non-executive directors on the board.

Mr Awori and Yusuf Omar, the chief financial officer at Barclays, are part of the board as executive directors.