Boards widen search to hire female members, report shows The study by Cranfield School of Management, the Government's official monitor of how many women are rising to the top of Britain's biggest companies, will say that executive search firms have upped their game since the introduction of voluntary targets to boost female board representation and are working closer than ever before to address the equality gap. Traditionally, company bosses look for a track record in finance and "profit and loss" experience but, experts argue, this puts women at a disadvantage because there are generally fewer women than men in these roles. The Cranfield report, due in the last week of May [May 28], will examine what impact the new "code of conduct," drawn up by the UK's leading headhunters last year and which pledged to look harder for female candidates, has had on recruitment decisions. Dr Ruth Sealy, author of the forthcoming report, said: "The net is definitely being cast wider in the search for women directors. The majority of new appointments in the FTSE 100 over the past year have been women that haven't held FTSE 350 board positions. That's a turn around from just a year ago - previously headhunters and chairmen were blaming each other for the lack of [women] candidates. However, she said: "Headhunters need to work with chairmen to make those changes happen. They need to question chairmen with open and frank conversations, be more robust in challenging the recruitment brief. A report last year by Lord Davies, the former trade minister leading the charge to improve boardroom diversity, said companies should look to other sectors to recruit senior positions, such as retail, hospitality or the public sector, where there are more examples of women with strong management experience rather than just a finance background. Women make up 15pc of all FTSE 100 boardroom positions, according to the latest figures from Cranfield; a 2.5pc rise since the Davies report. The UK target is 25pc by 2015. The Government wants to see more women on company boards as it believes greater diversity will help reduce "groupthink" - the notion that like-minded board members do not challenge each other's ideas enough - which has been blamed in part for the financial crisis.