Women at the top share their experiences

The event, at Harewood House, near Leeds, played host to more than 500 of the top eight per cent of the UK's most skilled and driven business women, representing a range of different sectors – from finance to retail, to law and accountancy. Although men also attended, they were heavily outnumbered.

It included contributions from Alliance Boots chief executive Andy Hornby and former MP Virginia Bottomley, who is now director of executive search firm Odgers Berndtson, along with Kate Bostock, executive director of clothing at Marks & Spencer, and Judith McKenna, chief financial officer of Asda.

A message of support from Prime Minister David Cameron for the conference was also read out.

Speakers tackled issues including the obstacles to women reaching the top of the FTSE 100 companies and noted the businesses which embrace diversity and encourage women at board level.

Baroness Bottomley told the audience why she believed women non-executive directors were in a better position than men to fulfil the role of being a critical friend to executive directors.

She said: "Women are very good at risk, very good at audit, very good at monitoring the chief executive's performance. These are all areas where they have a huge amount to give.

"When it comes to added value – how you bring new life into a business – this is where women really excel because of the creativity, the networks, the much broader perspective, and the really tricky thing of being a critical friend.

"There is a very delicate balance as a non-exec. We're not there to scrutinise the executives into the ground but you're not there to rubber stamp them either. It requires subtlety and it is a role which I think women very much pick up."

The coalition Government has pledged that by 2015, half of all new appointments made to public sector boards will be women.

But Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone told the audience: "Change will not happen because the Government says it will happen.

"We can certainly support you and provide you with the tools to give you more choice but, ultimately, we are actually depending on you to be the drivers of change."

Only 12 per cent of directors within the FTSE 100 companies are female.

Keynote speaker Mr Hornby said travel was the barrier to change for women at the top.

"Still we are not getting enough of an even representation in what I would call profit-responsible customer facing roles where often travel demands are greater, and that is something we have to address urgently," he said.

He added: "We are allowing the practicality of travel and the amount of travel that multinational firms require to become a barrier to what is required. We have to change the culture."

Forum and Two Percent Club founder Heather Jackson set out plans for The Pearl Club, a new initiative supporting women who have the desire to move their careers forward to board level.

In addition, Ms Jackson said work had already started on organising the second Women's Business Forum, which will take place next year.

"Personally, the first event has surpassed all expectations," she said. "I had a vision and I knew there was an issue but I couldn't have hoped for the response from both women and men that it received."

WOMEN IN A MEN'S WORLD

Some 12 per cent of directors with the FTSE 100 companies are female.

There are only five FTSE 100 companies that have female chief executives.

More than 20 per cent of FTSE 100 companies have no female representation at board level.

Women make up a third of directors in just one in three FTSE 100 companies

Only seven per cent of Yorkshire's top companies have female representation on their board

According to a recent report by McKinsey and Company, firms with three or more women in senior management functions score more highly on average for each organisational criterion than companies with no other women at the top.

According to the same report, companies with a higher proportion of women on their management committees have the best performance rates

The UK is significantly behind other countries in Europe in terms of female representation at board level.