If the word 'chairman' eventually falls out of use in the City of London in favour of the gender-neutral 'chair', then we can thank - or pin the blame on, depending on your point of view - charity CEO Andy Gregg.

Gregg (pictured), who is chief executive of Race on the Agenda and vice-chair of Refugee Action, rose from his seat at the conclusion of a speech by Helena Morrissey at the NCVO Trustee Conference yesterday, to rebuke her for repeatedly using the term 'chairman' to describe the leader of the board.

Ironically, Morrissey's presentation had been about her experience of founding and running the 30 Percent Club - the initiative that aims to get more women onto corporate boards.

Morrissey, who is the chief executive of Newton Investment Management, used her speech to explain what the 30 Percent Club is, to outline why it is important for boards to be more diverse, and to relate the successes that the club has had to date in improving gender equality in such a male-dominated domain.

Yet throughout her speech, she referred to the leader of the board - both corporate and charity boards - as the 'chairman'.

So at the end, once she was taking questions, Andy Gregg stood up and gave her both barrels.  He said he was "appalled to find myself in a situation where I am having to give a defence of political correctness" but that it was "insulting" for her to use the term. He told her that if she insisted on saying 'chairman' rather than 'chair' or 'chairperson' then she was "part of the problem rather than part of the solution".

In her response, Morrissey did not quibble.  "Good point," she said. "I'll drop the chairman bit from today, how's that? It's a good point, I accept that, from now on we'll just call everybody 'chair'."