Pretty and colourful: what women bring to the boardroom, according to Deutsche Bank's Josef Ackermann

Deutsche Bank's chief executive, Josef Ackermann, was told by Ilse Aigner, a female minister: 'Those who like pretty and colourful things should go take a walk in a field of flowers.' Photograph: Bernd Kammerer/AP

Deutsche Bank's chief executive found himself at the centre of a political storm after saying that appointing more women to the company's board would make it "prettier and more colourful".

Josef Ackermann's comments, made at a press conference last week but only reported in the Handelsblatt newspaper on Monday, were part of a debate about whether Germany should set quotas for the number of women on company boards, as Norway, Spain and France have done.

Acknowledging that there were no women on Deutsche Bank's board, the 63-year-old Swiss banker explained that he and other senior managers had embarked on a project "where we bring women together in groups and provide training and coaching so they become involved in projects and take part in top conferences".

He regretted the fact that they had not been able to find a woman for the group executive committee, which reports to the top executive board, adding: "But I hope it will become more colourful and prettier one day."

Ackermann said he believed businesses would benefit from having more women in senior positions but that he was opposed to quotas

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