3 Mary Hobbes joined the board of Rosh and Company，a large retailer，as finance director earlier this year. Whilst she was glad to have finally been given the chance to become finance director after several years as a financial accountant，she also quickly realised that the new appointment would offer her a lot of challenges. In the first board meeting，she realised that not only was she the only woman but she was also the youngest by many years.

　　Rosh was established almost 100 years ago. Members of the Rosh family have occupied senior board positions since the outset and even after the company’s flotation 20 years ago a member of the Rosh family has either been executive chairman or chief executive. The current longstanding chairman，Timothy Rosh，has already prepared his slightly younger brother，Geoffrey (also a longstanding member of the board)to succeed him in two years’time when he plans to retire. The Rosh family，who still own 40% of the shares，consider it their right to occupy the most senior positions in the company so have never been very active in external recruitment. They only appointed Mary because they felt they needed a qualified accountant on the board to deal with changes in international financial reporting standards.

　　Several former executive members have been recruited as non-executives immediately after they retired from full-time service. A recent death，however，has reduced the number of non-executive directors to two. These sit alongside an executive board of seven that，apart from Mary，have all been in post for over ten years.