Any other business: Turn down those token directorships, girls, and tell them you want to be chairman

Last Saturday was International Women’s Day, but we celebrated early in Helmsley when my Yorkshire home town was featured in national news last month as a beacon of recession-beating female entrepreneurship: 60 per cent of our new ventures have female owners. This is shaping up to be a good year for women in business generally, what with Vince Cable voicing support for all-women shortlists for directorships of FTSE 100 companies with a view to achieving 25 per cent representation by 2015, up from 20 per cent today.

The Business Secretary has been busy behind the scenes, too. ‘We had a letter from Vince telling us we should appoint a female non-exec…’ one chief executive told me last week ‘…and we’ve found a really good one, totally one of the boys, she even likes shooting.’ Despite such rampant masculinity, the urge for correctness — about 60 more female appointees will have to be found this year — has made prestigious directorships increasingly accessible to mid-career women who want to side-shift into a portfolio of corporate and charity board duties that allow time for home life as well.