Published for the Los Angeles Business Journal on June 22, 2021
Late last year, C200, Catalyst and Women Business Collaborative (WBC) released the 2020 Women CEOs in America Report: Changing the Face of Business Leadership. This first of its kind report tells a comprehensive story of women CEO leadership today in not only Fortune 500, S&P 500, and Russell 3000 companies, but in private companies including media and finance.
The report shares both the data and the profiles of model women CEOs, as well as providing economic perspectives and analysis of how to address the scarcity of diversity within the pipeline. The report profiles women CEOs and analyzes the pipeline across the public and private sectors, and with its companion monitoring tool offers critical insights to understanding women’s leadership in corporate America.
Today, 7.8% or 39 of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and less than 1% identify as a person of color. Thus, each appointment of a woman CEO is critical. In February 2021, the number increased to 40 women CEOs in the Fortune 500, or 8%, when Jane Fraser assumed control at Citi. C200, Catalyst and WBC are hopeful more women will be appointed CEO within the next six months. The time to elevate women CEOs and increase efforts to develop a rich and diverse pipeline is now.
“We ask corporate America to work with us to accelerate the progress towards our goals, including ensuring that by 2025 women are 15% of Fortune 500 CEOs and at least 10% of those CEOs are women of color,” said Edie Fraser, CEO of Women Business Collaborative.
C200 is a not-for-profit membership organization with an educational and charitable mission whose members include the world’s most successful women entrepreneurs and corporate leaders. The purpose of C200 is to encourage and facilitate the sharing of members’ expertise, experience, networks, and leadership to educate, inspire, support, and advance women in business.
Catalyst is a global nonprofit working with some of the world’s most powerful CEOs and leading companies to help build workplaces that work for women. Founded in 1962, Catalyst drives change with pioneering research, practical tools, and proven solutions to accelerate and advance women into leadership—because progress for women is progress for everyone.
Women Business Collaborative is an alliance of business women’s organizations working together to achieve equal position, pay and power for all women in business. It is a social movement consisting of millions of diverse, professional women and men, business organizations, public and private companies and the media leveraging the power of collaboration to accelerate change.
The complete 2020 Women CEOs in America Report: Changing the Face of Business Leadership is available at womenceoreport.org.