Women in the Boardroom

The Deloitte Global Boardroom Program's 8th edition of its Women in the Boardroom: A Global Perspective report analysed more than 18,000 companies in 50 countries and geographies, exploring representation of women in the boardroom, as well as insights on the political, social, and legislative trends behind these numbers. As organisations aim to build more equitable and balanced boardrooms and C-suites, with real diversity of thought, directors need to remain focused on gender parity to advance progress.

Highlights from the report include:

• Since 2022, the number of women on boards has risen 3.6 percentage points and the anticipated timeline for achieving parity has dropped by seven years. However, women hold less than one-quarter (23.3%) of the world’s board seats, posing implications for reaching greater gender representation in the boardroom.
• Just 8.4% of the world’s boards are chaired by women and 6% of CEOs are women
• At the current pace, reaching global gender parity for chairs and CEOs will not be reached before 2073 and 2111, almost 50 and 90 years from now, respectively.

As boards continue to probe whether, and to what extent, they and management are doing enough to drive change, it is important to keep in view the following:

1. Don’t default to historic experience profiles in selecting board members.
   Do we have the right mix of experiences, skills, and backgrounds to position ourselves to succeed in light of the complexities of today? To what extent do we, as a board, play it safe with respect to selecting our board or C-suite candidates? Do we default to narrow searches of candidates with a historical record of prior CEO experience, or are we willing to take risks to find leaders of the future? How much emphasis do we place on previous executive or board roles compared to skill sets, capabilities, leadership, and business acumen, which may be inadvertently excluding a range of high-quality women candidates?
   
2. Get creative in building governance experience.
   What creative solutions can management and the board deploy to provide more opportunities for women to gain governance experience? Have we considered placing high-potential candidates on boards of our subsidiaries or other entities to fuel not only our own board and C-suite pipelines, but also corporate pipelines more broadly?
   
3. Regularly interrogate your pipeline data and progress.
   Are we spending enough time challenging our data and outcomes? How fast are women being added to our C-suites? Are our pipelines advancing women at the same rates as men? Are we losing women leaders at critical junctures in the pipeline?

These areas are only a start, and boards cannot go at it alone. Business leaders in all markets will need to commit to collaborating on these matters; sharing their challenges as well as their successes, having the courage to ask difficult questions, and doing their part to help accelerate the timeline for achieving gender parity in the world’s boardrooms and C-suites.

Download the full copy of the report for comprehensive insights on trends driving gender representation in boardrooms worldwide, as well as a report card of the participating geographies detailing the percentage representation of women in leadership.