London - Glencore, the last British blue-chip company with an all male board, has appointed Patrice Merrin as its first female board director.
The commodity trader and mining group had come under fire from some shareholders over its apparent failure to follow recommendations in a 2011 British government review that called for more women on company boards.
The government's Davies Review set a target for all companies in the FTSE 100 to have a quarter of board roles held by women by 2015.
In May, Glencore chairman and former BP boss Tony Hayward said that the company would appoint a female director by the end of the year.
Since the Davies review, which did not recommend formal quotas, female representation on FTSE 100 boards had risen to 20.7 percent by March this year, from 12.5 percent in 2011.
Merrin, appointed as Glencore non-executive director with immediate effect, has worked at Canadian diversified miner Sherritt for a decade before becoming chief executive of Canadian thermal coal producer Luscar.
She is also a director of mining company Stillwater and has been proposed as director of MFC Industrial and Cliff Natural Resources. - Reuters