The industries where women are making the least C-suite progress are being rewritten.

Although the business world still faces significant and ongoing gender disparities in leadership, there are encouraging signs of progress towards bridging those gaps.

The Russell 3000 analysis revealed that the growth rate of women in leadership roles accelerated to an average of 6.9% between 2016 and 2021, up from 3.8% in the previous five years. This led to women holding nearly 14% of named executive officer roles in 2021, which is a significant increase from the 8% they held in 2010. Despite still being low, this represents progress towards gender equality in executive positions.

While some industries exhibit slow growth, the energy sector has the lowest representation of women among named executive officers, with only 9% of top jobs held by women. The financial services sector follows closely behind, with 12% of top jobs held by women and the second-lowest growth rate among all sectors. Despite the presence of prominent female leaders such as Citi CEO Jane Fraser in the financial services industry, progress towards gender equality remains slow.

Over the past decade, the sectors with the most significant growth in female representation in named executive positions have been basic materials and industrials, where women's share has doubled or improved (from 6% to 14% in materials and 6% to 12% in industrials). The sectors with the highest representation of women at the top are utilities, with 21% of leadership being female, and health care, with 16% female leadership.

The percentage of female CEOs has more than doubled from 2% in 2010 to over 5.5% in 2021, while the growth in female ranks for CFOs, treasurers, and finance VPs was much smaller, at 47%, 41%, and 56% respectively. This could indicate a potential red flag for the pipeline of female CEOs, as those finance roles traditionally lead to the highest management positions.

In 2021 and 2022, out of the 37 female CEOs appointed to run Russell 3000 companies, only about half had held C-suite roles (CEO, CFO, or COO) at their company or outside companies prior to becoming CEO. The rest were presidents, EVPs, or other positions. Among the newly-named CEOs, only one is a founder of her company - Mary Fedewa of Store Capital, who was promoted from the COO role last April.

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