Women Business Collaborative (WBC) with Ascend, C200 and Catalyst, has released the second annual report highlighting Women CEOs in America: Changing the Face of Business Leadership. The report, which draws on data and includes the most comprehensive breakdown of women in corporate leadership in the US, was released on October 13th via a live roundtable discussion.
Drawing on data from Fortune 500 and 1000, S&P, Russell 3000 and private companies, the report is a comprehensive look at women running public and private companies, as well as women-led start-ups and female entrepreneurs with more than $500 million in revenue. It also spotlights the status of diverse women CEOs and provides an assessment of the women in the executive suite pipeline, a critical piece of the puzzle for elevating more women to the CEO role.
Highlights of the report include:
- Women currently in CEO roles: 8.2% in the Fortune 500; 7.3% in the Fortune 1000; 6% in the S&P; 5.6% across the Russell 3000; and 7.4% at private companies with revenue over $1 billion.
- While the numbers for women in leadership are moving in the right direction, with the Fortune 500 up to 8.2% from 6.6% in 2019, progress is still too slow and not reflective of the nation.
- Women of color hold only one percent of CEO positions across the Fortune 1000
- In 2021, the number of women running businesses on the Fortune 500 hit an all-time record of 41, with six more women joining the ranks of Fortune 500 CEOs.
- Ten specific accelerators for companies of all types to join the WBC movement to help strengthen the pipeline of women leaders and make diversity a priority in succession planning.
“WBC members share two abiding principles: a belief in the transformative power of business to effect change, and the imperative to create more diverse leadership teams who can meet the moment of a rapidly evolving world,” said Edie Fraser, CEO of WBC. “Reporting on the hard data, sharing the facts and telling the real stories is critical to accelerating progress toward advancing more women – and more women of color – in business.”
