Tesco is losing directors Jacqueline Tammenoms Bakker and Olivia Garfield – meaning it has just one female board member
Two of Tesco's three female board members are leaving the troubled supermarket this week.
Jacqueline Tammenoms Bakker, who has been a director for six years, will retire at the end of Tesco's financial year, which is on Saturday.
Olivia Garfield is stepping down at the same time, after nearly two years at the grocer to concentrate “fully” on her role as the chief executive of Severn-Trent, which she took up last April.
Sir Richard Broadbent, Chairman, said: "Tesco would like to put on record its appreciation for the dedicated and unstinting contribution of all its directors during a time of unprecedented challenge."
Their departures leave just one woman – Deanna Oppenheimer – remaining on a board of 12 people.
By Tesco's standards that probably doesn't seem a huge problem, but it could place the retailer in the government's bad books if they are not replaced.
Business secretary Vince Cable has been championing greater diversity in Britain's biggest companies and earlier this month named and shamed those companies that were below a target that a quarter of board members be women.
Even prior to their departure, Tesco was not meeting that target, and at 21 per cent, it was just behind the FTSE 100 average of 22.8 per cent.