CEO Angela Ahrendts has made history as the first woman ever to top the executive pay league in the UK, it has been revealed.

There’s a clear £5 million between her and the next highest earner, according to the survey of 350 listed companies by corporate governance group Manifest and pay consultancy MM&K for 2011-12.

It really shouldn’t come as such a surprise. The phenomenal businesswoman – one of only three in female executives in the Financial Times’ list of Top 100 companies (FTSE 100) – has been at the helm of the iconic British fashion brand since 2006 and it has seen record growth and profits during her tenure.

The story should not be that a woman has topped the chart but, indeed, that it has taken so long for it to happen.

The government has set a target of every FTSE 100 company having at least a quarter of their boardroom positions filled by women by 2015 – something to which Ahrendts has voiced her opposition.

'I am not in favour of quotas,’ she said in a recent interview with The Guardian. ‘Just put the best person in the job. It is not about gender. It is about experience, leadership and vision.'

Bravo.

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