Executive body gender balance policy
With women making up 63% of its workforce at 31 December 2024, the Lagardère group has strong female representation and having a balanced representation of men and women in senior management positions is one of its priority commitments.
In this context, the Group has signed up to the UN’s Women Empowerment Principles and to the StOpE initiative which aims to combat casual sexism in the workplace.
In line with this commitment and with the recommendations of the Afep-Medef Code to which the Company adheres, General Management has adopted a diversity policy for the Group’s executive bodies, which is regularly reviewed by the Board of Directors and its Appointments, Remuneration and CSR Committee.
Since the proportion of women executives of the Group reached 51% in 2020, General Management had decided in early 2021 to focus its efforts going forward on a smaller scope that is more representative of the Group’s top executives. The scope chosen takes into account the Group’s specific characteristics, notably its significant decentralised structure and international exposure and corresponds to: (i) members of the Group’s Executive Committee and their direct reports, (ii) members of the executive committees of the four main territories in which Lagardère operates, as well as all members of the management committees of the French administrative departments and senior executives in France, (iii) members of the executive committee and the management teams of the autonomous entities in the countries (including the subsidiaries of certain entities specifically dedicated to business lines and organised with their own management team) for Lagardère Travel Retail, (iv) members of the enlarged executive committee, i.e., members of the Executive Committee plus the activity and editorial managers for Lagardère News and Lagardère Radio, and (v) members of the management committees of Lagardère Paris Racing and Lagardère Live Entertainment.
Within this new scope of just over 380 people (42% women representation at end-2020), in early 2021, General Management had set a target of women making up 45% of the population by the end of 2024. This will be achieved through several action plans, including:
- actively seeking appropriate gender balance when recruiting for managerial positions, up to the short-list phase;
- preparing succession plans as part of talent reviews with a greater emphasis on gender balance;
- promoting work-life balance, including parenting;
- focusing on equal opportunity in remuneration, training and career development policies;
- providing training and awareness-raising on diversity issues and on unconscious bias for all those involved in the recruitment process;
- raising the awareness of all employees to casual sexism in the workplace through self- assessment and training campaigns;
- incorporating gender balance targets within the CSR criteria used to determine components of short- and long-term variable remuneration for the members of the Executive Committee and senior executives of the Group;
- the internal mentoring programme.
Each year steering committees comprising the Human Resources and CSR Directors of the operating divisions and the Corporate division review the implementation of these action plans along with the changes brought about. The Human Resources Committee is responsible for supervising action plans for the full Lagardère group scope, under the authority of the Secretary General of the Lagardère group, who is also a member of the Executive Committee.
The benefits of these action plans continued to be felt in 2024, with the proportion of women managers remaining at 60% (7,046 people) and the proportion of women top executives at 46% (388 people), exceeding the target set in 2021.
The proportion of women in the Group’s executive bodies stabilised in 2024, since:
- the Group’s Executive Committee comprises three women and four men, a ratio of 43% representation of women;
- women members made up 30% of Lagardère Travel Retail’s Executive Committee at 31 December 2024 (three women and seven men);
- women account for the majority of Hachette Livre’s International Executive Committee (66%, i.e., six women and three men in 2024);
- the Lagardère News Executive Committee comprises five women and five men.
Gender Equality Index
The weighted gender equality index is 93/100 for the 2024 data. This weighted index was calculated using the scores obtained by the 17 Group companies subject to this obligation (published on their websites), which represent a workforce of 4,781 employees at 31, december 2024.
Lagardère Ressources (a company that manages all of the Group’s central resources and has 84 employees) obtained a score of 76/100 for the year 2025 for the 2024 data.
- Indicator relating to the pay gap: 21 out of 40;
- Indicator relating to the gap in the rate of individual increases: 35 out of 35;
- Indicator relating to employees having received an increase on their return from maternity leave: 15 out of 15;
- Indicator on the number of employees of the under-represented gender in the top 10 highest paid: 5 out of 10.
As the result was less than 85 points, the company has set improvement targets for each of the indicators for which the maximum score was not achieved:
- Pay gap indicator: the aim is to reduce the pay gap between men and women, in order to achieve an equivalent level of pay between them in each of the equivalent job categories, and to make targeted adjustments where necessary;
- Indicator relating to the number of employees of the under-represented sex among the 10 highest earners: the objective of promoting gender diversity in the workplace is a priority for the company, with the aim of ensuring equality between men and women in management positions.
Management reaffirms its commitment by regularly monitoring these indicators, the effects of which should be visible as soon as the Index 2026 is published.