Some of the Netherlands’ most senior female executives have called for a 40% quota for women on corporate supervisory boards and public sector regulators, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday.

Over 200 woman have signed a manifesto demanding an official quota, which will be handed over to MPs, ministers, unions and employer organisations later today.
The manifesto is the initiative of headhunters agency Woman Capital which was earlier behind a call to get women appointed to the boards of financial service companies which have had state support, the paper points out.
Signatories
The signatories include Monika Milz, a director at Rabobank who says ‘too much female talent is being wasted and that hurts corporate Holland’.
Trude Maas, who serves on the supervisory board at Philips, Schiphol Airport and ABN Amro, told the paper she had had enough. ‘If you’ve tried everything you have to look for another solution. That is a quota,’ she was quoted as saying.
The percentage of women on the management boards at the biggest 500 companies is just 3.4%, the paper says.
The signatories are not calling for a quota on management boards because that would mean men would have to be sacked, Bercan Günel of Woman Capital said.
‘But having more woman on supervisory boards and serving in regulatory bodies means women would become more visible and could exert more pressure on executive boards,’ Maas said.