The fifth annual report of the FTSE Women Leaders Review was published on Tuesday and shows strong progress made on the increase of women's representation on Boards and leadership in the FTSE 350 and the UK's 50 largest private companies. This is clearly something to be celebrated. The challenge is now to expand that pipeline and safeguard the long term resilience of this achievement. 

It is however interesting to note that not as much progress has been made in redressing the gender imbalance within executive leadership roles where more discretion and incumbency may dominate.  Whilst mandatory targets are always controversial, they may well be needed where the decision making process is more internal and opaque.  Watch this space.