It will come as little surprise that CEO positions at FTSE 100 companies are dominated by men. But progress towards gender parity is being made – albeit slowly.
Earlier this year, Allison Kirkby was appointed chief executive of BT Group and Poppy Gustafsson, the CEO of Darktrace, joined the ranks of FTSE 100 leaders when her firm was promoted to the index. With these additions, there are now 11 women at the helm of blue-chip companies in the UK.
Although this is a long way from the desired 50/50 split, since 2018, the FTSE 100 has done more to address the CEO gender imbalance than any other global index reviewed by executive search firm Russell Reynolds.
At the present rate, there will be an equal number of men and women leading FTSE 100 companies by 2057. This is 16 years ahead of the next best-performing index, the CAC 40, and 46 years sooner than the FTSE 250.
Luke Meynell, global lead for board and CEO advisory partners at Russell Reynolds Associates, believes this progress comes thanks to the number of UK companies appointing women to non-executive director roles. Women now hold more than 40% of FTSE 350 board positions, for instance.
But the pace of change has still been disappointing to many, including Tara Cemlyn-Jones, founder of not-for-profit enterprise 25x25, which aims to improve the gender balance at the executive level.
Cemlyn-Jones acknowledges that FTSE 100 firms have done more than other companies to identify barriers to gender parity and promote more diverse candidates. But, she adds, the change so far has been marginal, rising from six female FTSE 100 CEOs in 2019. “Between 2020, when 25x25 was founded, and 2025, we expected to see much faster progress,” she says.
Women still lack opportunities to become operational or division leaders
It is also likely that the FTSE 100 will soon lose one of its 11 female CEOs. In April 2024, US private equity firm Thoma Bravo agreed to acquire Darktrace for approximately £4.3bn.
There has been a recent slowdown in CEO turnover too, which has meant fewer opportunities for women to enter the top role. In Q2 2024 there were no CEO departures or appointments in the FTSE 100 – the first quarter with no turnover since Russell Reynolds began recording this data.
While Cemlyn-Jones admits this may be a good sign for business – some level of stability in the chief executive position is important and it’s a costly role to replace – it could also be delaying further gender progress.
She explains: “We don’t want to achieve gender parity to the detriment of overall performance and productivity, but more focus was being put on this subject previously. Thanks to political uncertainty and macroeconomic challenges, some organisations consider issues around talent to be less important.”
A structural challenge
Fiona Hathorn, CEO of Women on Boards UK, says it’s great to see nearly twice as many female chief executives in the FTSE 100 compared with five years ago, but stresses that the number is still too low.
“This progress shows that exceptional women are gaining recognition, as they should,” she says. “However, challenges remain.”
The main problem is the lack of women in leadership roles further down the organisational hierarchy, Hathorn explains. “Women are still under-represented at middle-management level and lack opportunities to become operational or division leaders,” she says.
Such leadership roles are common stepping stones to the top seat. Almost three in 10 (28%) FTSE 100 CEOs held a divisional director position immediately before becoming chief executive. By comparison, 15% had been the CEO at another company, 12% had been CFOs and 10% were chief operating officers.
We need to look beyond just representation
Women representation on the executive committee of FTSE 100 companies has also improved, passing 30% for the first time this year. But women are over-represented in HR director (80%) and company secretary (58%) roles, according to FTSE Women Leaders.
According to Hathorn, these are “less advantageous” roles because they do not provide the operational, strategic and profit-and-loss experience that boards look for in potential chief executives.
Cemlyn-Jones agrees, adding: “It’s relatively easy to place women on an executive committee. But they’re not sitting in roles that give them the right experience to be a CEO. You have to increase the number of women moving into pathway roles, such as divisional CEOs, regional heads and operational roles.”
To address this issue, businesses must reconsider the pathway to the executive seat, Cemlyn-Jones argues. “It’s not about the volume of women coming through, it’s about structure,” she says.
Companies must promote the progression of women into divisional director and operational roles, while also ensuring succession-planning processes are achieving the desired outcomes, Cemlyn-Jones explains. This is key to ensuring that the CEO gender balance continues to improve.
Challenges at the top
Even when women do reach the top role at the largest corporations, they continue to face gender inequality.
Meynell says companies must look beyond mere representation. “For instance, women CEOs have shorter tenures at the top than men and we have seen a number of high-profile women CEO exits in recent years,” he says.
Alison Rose, former CEO of NatWest Group, was one of the more notable CEO departures last year. She was forced to resign in July after she admitted to disclosing information about the closure of Nigel Farage’s Coutts bank account.
But Sue Vinnicombe, professor of Women and Leadership at Cranfield School of Management, says Rose was being held to a higher standard than other CEOs in this instance. “Yes, Rose made a bit of a mistake,” says Vinnicombe, “but she’s not the only one.”
She adds that it can be hard for women to work in male-dominated executive committees and highlights the need for a “mixture of voices around the table to have better conversations”.
The gender pay gap is also a problem among CEOs. The average female FTSE 100 boss earned £768,000 less than their male counterpart last year.
Hathorn admits that the small sample size makes it difficult to draw conclusions, but notes that female executives often don’t negotiate as aggressively as men when it comes to salary.
“The most important stage of the negotiation process in regards to salary is when you’re being promoted,” she says. “In general, men negotiate harder and are less likely than women to be judged for being aggressive.”
Ultimately, it will be down to the leadership at these blue-chip firms to improve their talent management and progression pipeline for female leaders. Although 2057 is a long way off, Cemlyn-Jones says: “If companies take this seriously, change can happen very quickly.”
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