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LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Karin Forseke, chairwoman ofembattled British investment firm Alliance Trust, saidon Friday she was stepping down from her role on January 1, asthe company implements a major overhaul following pressure fromactivist investor Elliott Advisors.
Gregor Stewart, a non-executive director of Alliance Trust,will take on the role of interim chair until a new chair ischosen.
It follows an announcement in October that the Trust wouldimplement "significant changes" to deliver better performance,partly by creating a wholly indepenent board.
"We are making good progress implementing changes announcedin October to accelerate our long-term strategy and we expectthe new governance structure to be in place in early 2016,"Forseke said in a statement.
Katherine Garrett-Cox, chief executive of the trust saidlast month she was resigning her position on the trust's boardto focus on tackling the firm's underperformance, in theaftermath of the bitter spat with its top shareholder Elliott.
Alastair Kerr, senior independent director, will also standdown from the board on January 1, earlier than planned. KarlSternberg will take on his role and lead the search for a newexternal candidate to chair the board.
News of Forseke's imminent departure comes as a blow toleaders of a nationwide campaign for greater femalerepresentation on the boards of British companies.
The Davies Report on Women on Boards published in Octobershowed that there were more women on the boards of companieslisted in the FTSE 350 index than ever before, withrepresentation of women more than doubling since 2011 - now at26.1 percent on FTSE 100 boards and 19.6 percent onmid-cap FTSE 250 boards.
There are no all-male boards in the FTSE 100 and only 15 inthe FTSE 250, the report showed, but there are still just ahandful of FTSE 100 female CEOs and two chairwomen. (Reporting by Sinead Cruise; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
