Opinion: Tony Cornell on equal opportunities

Why do so few women get to the top? The Top 100 Independent Brokers supplement shows only two commercial lines brokers have women in charge. Tony Cornell asks why

I well remember in the mid-1980s having in my team a female outside representative specialising in marine insurance. She was the only woman employed in any broking contact role in the UK market at the time. Towards the end of the decade, the company appointed two more – this time general account executives – and then gradually women filled more outside sales roles, eventually some moving on to middle management functions. 

It was really difficult for those early female pioneers to do their job