According to the study findings, published in the British Journal of Management, companies with just one female director on their board have considerably undervalued share prices, compared with all-male run companies.

The study looked at Britain's biggest companies listed on the FTSE 100 and tried to strip any coincidental factors such as women tending to run retail and technology companies that may well have faired badly during the period of the study (2001-2006).

At the start of the study, half of all of the companies had all-male boards, but by 2006 just 15 per cent did, suggesting that many female executives were making it to the top even if only a handful made it to the very top job of chief executive

Companies with women directors however do just as well when it comes to making profits.