This week Fortune Magazine announced their annual list of Fortune 500 companies. For the first time in 6 years the number of women was flat year over year at 10.4%. How disappointing.
Since the 80's I would look at the number of women who were CEO's of these companies as a proxy for progress for women in corporate America. In the 80's and 90's, like many of us, being a CEO of a Fortune 500 company seemed sadly out of reach. In fact there was consistently only one name through those years, the iconic Katherine Graham, who headed the Washington Post after the tragic death of her husband.
However, in the late 90's that started to change when the women who entered the workplace in the 70's after the second wave of the women's movement, began to reach the top. Women like Jill Barad, Mattel; @Meg Whitman, Ebay and HP; @Carly Fiorina, HP; Pat Russo, Lucent; Andrea Jung, Avon; Anne Mulcahy and Ursula Burns, Xerox and now there have been over 100.
When I joined Catalyst Inc. in 2018, 4.8% of the Fortune 500 were women. In 2023 10.4% were women. We were proud of that significant progress; it was steadily increasing and doubled in 5 years. We were hopeful that it would continue unabated until it became normative to be a women CEO. Now 2024 was flat and we sadly lost one of our two black women (though Toni Townes-Whitley followed another women CEO @Nassic Keene at SAIC). We have so many great women leaders like Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin, Cathy Engelbert, Deloitte and Julie Sweet, Accenture who I had the honor to work with closely as my board chairs at Catalyst.
We cannot let this pause become a trend. We have so many qualified women leaders today. Today, women make up over 30% of boards and over 25% of senior management.
In my next chapter I am dedicating my efforts to continue to break this glass ceiling and make it not newsworthy for women to lead major companies so that the women of 2030 will not feel like I did in the 80's.
#womenceos #womensleadership
Senior Vice President, Chief HR & Diversity Officer | Proud Mom | Ally | Heart in multiple countries
10moA wonderful and well-deserved recognition!