British American Tobacco - Board diversity

The Board appreciates the benefits of diversity in all its forms, within its own membership and at all levels across the Group.

The Board promotes diversity and encourages initiatives to improve diversity in senior management roles, in areas including gender, ethnicity and nationality.

Women represent 27% of our Board and eight different nationalities are represented among our Board members: American (1), Brazilian (1), British (4), Canadian (1), French (1), German (1), Greek (1) and Irish (1). Additionally, women represent 15% of our Management Board.

The Nominations Committee is responsible for regularly reviewing the composition of both the Board and Management Board to ensure both boards have an appropriate balance of skills, expertise and knowledge, and ensuring that all appointments are made on merit against objective criteria and with due regard for the benefits of diversity.

Our Board Diversity Policy sets out the Board’s commitment to the following objectives:

• considering all aspects of diversity when reviewing the composition of, and succession planning for, the Board and Management Board
• considering a wide pool of candidates of both genders for appointment to the Board
• maintaining at least 30% representation of women on our Board, with the ambition of progressing towards further gender balance
• giving preference, where appropriate, to engaging executive search firms that are accredited under the Standard and Enhanced Codes of Conduct for Executive Search Firms, which include gender diversity
• Supporting the oversight of the development of a pipeline of diverse, high-performing potential Executive Directors, Management Board members and other senior managers.

We are a diverse employer. There were 141 nationalities represented at management level within our Group in 2019 while women comprised 23% of our senior management population.