Trans women are included in a push to get more female chief executives into the FTSE 100 by next year, the head of the campaign has said.

The 25x25 initiative, which is backed by major companies including Unilever, NatWest and BP, was created in 2021 with the target of getting 25 female chief executives running bluechip companies by 2025. There are currently only ten.

Tara Cemlyn-Jones, chief executive of the non-profit organisation, confirmed that people self-identifying as women count towards that target.

Ms Cemlyn-Jones said “anyone who identifies as a woman, is a woman”, though she stressed that 25x25 were “not an authority on this subject” and would always defer to partners on “language, aims and ambitions” in this area.