The Board of Deputies has attained a gender-balanced executive committee for the first time in its 264-year history with the recent internal election of five women to the organisation’s leadership team.

The achievement appears to be a result of the BoD’s new gender equality initiative, launched last month in response to the May election of an all-male honorary officer team for the first time in 15 years. Now the five male honorary officers, including BoD President Phil Rosenberg, will be joined by five female executive committee members, elected in recent weeks.

Sheila Gewolb has been elected as chair of the regional council; ⁠Harriett Goldenberg as vice chair of the international division; ⁠Claire Morland as vice chair of the finance, fundraising and organisation division; Judith Prinsley as vice chair of the security, resilience and cohesion Division; and Naomi Ter-Berg as vice chair of the communities and education division.

Rosenberg congratulated the new executive committee members, adding that they make up “a really strong group to lead us through the next three years.”

“I am particularly delighted that, for the first-time in our history, we have an equal number of women and men on the executive. The achievement of a gender-balanced executive is an important step on the road to equality. However, there is much more to do; I look forward to working with our Deputies to continue to make the community more inclusive in the years ahead,” Rosenberg said.

The results represent an early success in fulfilling the ambitions of Board’s gender equality plan, released in September, which pledged to raise the number of female deputies in the organisation to better reflect the diversity of the Jewish community.

The plan was produced in consultation with women deputies after May’s elections, drawing from the results of internal surveys of women in the organisation as well as the recommendations of the Jewish Leadership Council’s 2012 Commission on Women in Jewish Leadership.

The announcement of the plan came shortly after two women – former Labour MP Dame Louise Ellman and Liberal Judaism Chair Karen Newman – were selected to be independent chairs of the Board’s plenary sessions, a role which was previously held by the president.

The new programme includes provisions to change the workplace culture and encourage more women to step forward for BoD divisional and executive elections to ensure balanced representation.

The previous president, Marie van der Zyl, was only the second woman to take up the role.