More than 45 of the world’s highest profile technology companies, including Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, have signed a pledge to expand their boards to more women.

On Wednesday evening, French President Emanuel Macron dined with 180 technology executives, including Jack Ma of Alibaba and Ken Hu of Huawei.

He was also attended individual meetings with Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber and Virginia Rometty of IBM.

The French presidency has stated that businesses that successfully meet the proposed target should then proceed with complete gender equality, including on executive committees.

Consulting firm McKinsey have highlighted that, to date, women in the technology sector hold a mere 15% of management posts.

Businesses in the technology sector are also reported to be lagging behind the average FTSE 100 and wider economy in terms of gender parity among executive teams.

In addition, recruitment agency Inclusive Boards has discovered that only 12.6% of board members in the technology sector are women, compared to 30% among FTSE 100 company boards.

April saw the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, back efforts to improve gender diversity in the technology sector, highlighting that more will have to be done to eliminate gender equality.

The ‘Tech for good’ summit aims to encourage global tech leaders to consider how advancing technologies can contribute to sectors such as health and education.