How women are represented in business

London - Reuters is running a series of stories about women in finance as part of its coverage of International Women's Day on March 8.

The following compilation of data illustrates how women are represented in finance and other businesses globally:

- Globally, 24% of senior management roles are held by women, a figure unchanged since 2007, according to accounting firm Grant Thornton's International Business Report 2014.

- Businesses with a female CEO account for 12% of all the companies around the world, and 32% of employees globally are women, according to the OECD report.

- Women earn 17% less than men for similar skills and positions, according to the OECD's report "Closing the Gender Gap: Act Now", published in December 2012.

- Just one in seven delegates attending the annual World Economic Forum this year was a woman, according to Grant Thornton's report.

- Women made up 12% of company boards in the EU in 2010 and 18% of central bank boards in the EU in 2010, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality Index's latest report.

- In the financial services industry, women make up 29% of senior roles and 11% of companies globally run a specific programme to support/mentor women, according to Grant Thornton data.

- BNP Paribas's CEO Jean-Laurent Bonnafe raised the French bank's target for women representation at senior roles from 20% to 25% in 2014. Women consist of around 53% of employees across the entire group and as at December 2012, women made up 35.7% of the 14 members of the board of directors elected by shareholders.

- A third of employees at Morgan Stanley are women and 27% of global Managing Director promotions were women in 2014, an all time high at the U.S. bank.

- At HSBC, 23% of senior roles are currently occupied by women. The bank wants to increase the ratio to 25%  by 2014/15. Overall, women make up 52.3 percent of the 262 000 staff.