Women’s Representation in the C-Suites Declines as Gender Parity Remains Elusive

A recent report from Russell Reynolds Associates reveals a troubling trend in corporate leadership, as women's representation in C-suites has declined for the first time in two decades. The analysis highlights that while progress is being made in some areas, significant barriers remain, particularly in key roles that traditionally lead to the CEO position. Let’s take a closer look!

October 17, 2024 – In March of 2024, S&P Global published an alarming report: for the first time in two decades, C-suite women lost seats in the S&P Total Market Index. In 2022, women held 12.2 percent of the 15,000 C-suite positions across publicly traded U.S. firms. However, this regressed to just 11.8 percent by the end of 2023.

While the report offers an overview of C-suite gender diversity, it does not examine women’s representation within specific leadership roles. “Understanding these nuances is key to moving past gender diversity generalizations toward a more substantive analysis of those with power and influence,” says a new report from Russell Reynolds Associates. “Those listed as an organization’s top team provide a clearer indicator of where power truly resides within a company’s structure and hierarchy.”

To better understand how women’s representation is changing within specific leadership roles across America’s largest public organizations, Russell Reynolds analyzed the C-suites of the top 100 companies in the S&P 500 (referred to as the S&P 100 in this report).

Research shows that firms with more women in senior positions are more profitable, more socially responsible, and provide safer, higher-quality customer experiences. And Russell Reynolds’ own research shows that women leaders perform alongside (or, on coaching & development measures, even outperform) their male counterparts. “And while change is happening, this data shows that it’s not happening fast—or consistently—enough,” the Russell Reynolds report said.

Gender Parity Remains a Long Ways Away

Unsurprisingly, in the two years since Russell Reynolds last measured gender diversity in the S&P 100’s C-suites, women remain severely underrepresented. There are 74 percent fewer women executives in leadership teams than there are in the U.S. population. While women account for 50.5 percent of the U.S. population benchmark, they account for just 29 percent of all executives in the top leadership teams of the S&P 100. Comparably, men account for 71 percent of the executives in those top leadership teams. Women hold a mere nine percent of the CEO roles in the S&P 100. There needs to be 5.7x the number of women CEOs to be at parity with the population benchmark.

Related: Want Higher Profits? Put a Woman in the Top Job

The traditional CEO feeder roles of CFO, COO, and P&L leaders show significant underrepresentation of women, which makes the path toward CEO that much more difficult. In looking at the COO role (eight percent), we would need to see 6.6x more women in the role to reach parity with the population benchmark, and 2.5x more women in the CFO role (20 percent).

S&P 100 Gender Distribution by Executive Roles

S&P 100 gender distribution by executive roles

Russell Reynolds explains that on a more encouraging note, some of these CEO feeder roles have seen a slight improvement in women’s representation since 2022. The share of women P&L leaders increased by 4pp (20 percent to 24 percent). Women CFOs increased by 2pp (18 percent in 2022 to 20 percent in 2024)—meaning that two more women stepped into CFO roles over the past two years. This aligns with the firm’s Global CFO Turnover Index,  which identified that, in the first half of 2024, 44 of the 163 CFOs appointed were women—the highest number of women CFO appointments in the past five years. That said, women remain massively underrepresented in the COO role—of the 26 COOs currently in the S&P 100, only two are women.

The CHRO role is the only S&P 100 C-suite position in which gender disparity favors women, as women hold 72 percent of these roles. However, according to Russell Reynolds’ 2024 Global Leadership Monitor, CHROs are also the least likely member of the C-suite to aspire to the CEO role, with a mere 14 percent naming this as a career goal.

“This speaks to the motivation gaps in what women and men seek in their careers and shows that, despite women’s better representation in this space, it’s unlikely to meaningfully impact their ascendency to the CEO role—at least in the immediate future,” the report said. “The gender breakdown by role demonstrates that S&P 100 organizations cannot make measurable progress towards gender parity in the top job unless they consider a broader range of executive backgrounds for their CEO candidates.”

In 2022, Russell Reynolds research found that 43 percent of CEOs in the Fortune 250 companies were promoted from the COO position, making it the most commonly held internal role prior to taking the top job. And the firm’s Global Leadership Monitor confirms that the majority of COOs align with this framing, with 59 percent agreeing that their career goal is to become a CEO. However, over the past two years, this goal only came to fruition for men.

Related: Tempting Talent Reveals Wide Gender Pay Gap Across U.S. Executive Search Sector

Returning to the S&P 100, of the 35 men who were a COO in 2022, Russell Reynolds found eight have been promoted to CEO or president at their same organization. One other left their organization for a president role elsewhere. But of the four women who’d held the COO role, none had been promoted—and three out of four left their operating roles to pursue boards/advisory work.

Where Did the COOs of 2022 Land in 2024?

Where did the COOs of 2022 land in 2024?The COO remit has never been consistent—it varies significantly by industry and organization, and is often tied to a specific organizational need (e.g., transformation, training the next CEO), according to the Russell Reynolds report. For example, of the eight organizations that promoted their COO to CEO since 2022, only three have hired a new COO. The rest have left the seat empty.

As such, there is a large amount of variation in the number of S&P COOs. And despite recent reports of COOs making a comeback, Russell Reynolds found that the number of COOs in the S&P 100 actually dropped—from 39 to 26—over the last two years.

“Our findings demonstrate that the COO role continues to be a key path into the CEO role (and in many instances may actually be a temporal “CEO in waiting” position),” Russell Reynolds said. “This stepping stone does not, however, appear to be working for women. While it’s important to understand gender representation across the S&P 100’s executive population, it’s perhaps even more crucial to understand how it varies between companies. With that, we analyzed each S&P 100 leadership team, only including organizations with seven or more executives in the C-suite (97 in total.)”

As of July of 2024, one S&P 100 senior leadership team is comprised of all men, and four have only one woman executive onboard. Thirty-nine C-suites have less than 25 percent women, and the majority (68) are comprised of less than one-third women. Only six S&P 100 leadership teams are comprised of 50 percent or more women, meaning the vast majority (91) have yet to reach gender parity. “The six organizations that have achieved parity all look different from an industry and product offering perspective,” the report notes. “That said, they are all well-established companies—with one exception, all of them were founded over 50 years ago.”

Making Meaningful Progress for Women at the Top

“By focusing our analysis on the top leadership team, we can move past the generalities of gender diversity in leadership toward a more substantive analysis of those with the most power and influence,” the Russell Reynolds report said. “Principally, this avoids the blurring of leadership levels, which can result in an overly rosy picture in which progress on gender diversity at the next generation leadership level masks the real, typically more limited level of progress at the very top.”

Russell Reynolds’ findings highlight the need for an expanded consideration set for executives brought forth to become CEO, especially as women executives remain significantly underrepresented in traditional CEO feeder roles. “Furthermore, gender diversity in executive leadership means more than just equal representation of men and women across C-suites,” the firm said. “Organizations must also ensure that women brought into executive leadership roles also gain a sense of belonging and see the direct impacts of their contributions to the organization’s success.”

Related: Executive Women Making Progress Closing Pay Gap

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media

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