They don't want to hear about it. The boards of directors of hotel companies in the south of Gran Canaria have a gentrification problem: the old guard is not leaving and the law gives them until the end of 2025 for them to reorganize. The hotel chains of Las Palmas with interests in the south of Gran Canaria are the ones that resist the most. "It is not that there are no women on the boards, it is that they do not want to reveal information and hiring independent women from outside is a risk because the boards must be professionalized and that implies fewer benefits," says the secretary of the board of a hotel company in the south of Gran Canaria, what is the question: "How are we going to leave the business in the hands of a lawyer who can leave for a competitor?"
The reason is that the boards of directors decide on purchases and no one wants to lose control of their land. There are councils that have not been completely renewed for three decades. There are chains that are trying to get around the new rules by changing the boards of directors with the intention of not doing so; But this entails changes in management in a way that can cause minority shareholders to take full control of a company.
The Organic Law of equal representation and balanced presence of women and men requires the effective representation of women in the decision-making areas of political and economic life, so that progress is made in achieving the real and effective exercise of the constitutional principle of equality. . To do this, it introduces substantial modifications in different regulations of the Spanish legal system.
This transposes Directive (EU) 2022/2381 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 November 2022 on better gender balance among directors of listed companies and related measures. In this way, Spain assumes a leadership position when it comes to incorporating international standards and recommendations related to gender equality into its legislation.
In this way, the bill incorporates the principle of balanced representation to the business environment. To achieve this, the selection processes must be adapted to ensure compliance with this provision, and in the event of a tie between several candidates, the one of the least represented sex on the council must be chosen. In the case of listed companies, failure to comply with these provisions is established as a serious violation.
