The board rooms of New Zealand’s biggest public companies are becoming more gender diverse, according to the latest annual report from the country’s main stock market index, the NZX 50.

Twenty-nine per cent of directors (89 people) across S&P/NZX 50 companies were women in FY19, up from just 22 per cent in FY15. This puts the index on track to meet the 2020 target of having 30 per cent female directorship, as recommended by Global Women.

This is roughly on par with the ASX-200, where 29.5 per cent of directors were women in FY19.

It also reflects an increase in the net number of new female directors in recent years. In FY19, there were 38 net new female directors across all NZX issuers, compared to 40 in FY18, 11 in FY17, nine in FY16 and seven in FY15.

There was also a 7.5 per cent increase in female officers in FY19, who now number 106.

All eligible S&P/NZX 50 issuers and roughly 85 per cent of all issuers had a written diversity policy in place by the end of the 2019 financial year, according to the report.