(In paragraph 3, corrects number of posts to 8,000 from 5,000and makes clear that these are top posts)
May 29 (Reuters) - Lloyds Banking Group has hired afemale KPMG partner to head its audit operations as thestate-backed group attempts to increase the number of seniorfemale executives, Sky News reported late Wednesday.
The news service said that Lloyds issued an internalannouncement on Wednesday that named Mary Hall as the lender'snew group audit director, one of its most senior positions. (http://link.reuters.com/hys69v)
This move is the latest step toward the bank's self-imposedgender target for senior managers as Lloyds aims to have womenin 40 percent of its top 8,000 posts by 2020 compared with 28percent now.
Hall, who will become the second-most senior woman at theBritish bank, would report to Nick Luff, the departing financedirector of Centrica who chairs Lloyds' audit committee, Skysaid.
Lloyds was not available for a comment immediately. (Reporting by Aashika Jain in Bangalore; Editing by LisaShumaker)
Lloyds (LLOY)
