Just seven of the 25 companies listed on Amsterdam stock exchange’s blue chip AEX index have signed up to a government initiative to get more women into top jobs, the Volkskrant reports on Thursday.

Philips and Shell have not joined the scheme and signatories Heineken and TomTom cannot say how many women they have in senior management layers, the paper says.
Talent naar de Top (talent to the top) was launched four years ago. In total, 170 firms are taking part in the scheme.
A spokesman for Akzo Nobel told the paper the chemicals company has not joined in because the focus is national and too narrow. ‘Diversity means a lot more than that to us,’ a spokesman said. ‘It is also about taking non-western managers to the top.’