This study is one of the most significant pieces of research conducted on gender in the C-suite, covering 17 years of the Russel 3000 group companies. It provides an insightful analysis of women’s underrepresentation and outperformance in executive positions.
This research uses a time-horizon study to evaluate the performance of companies in financial outcomes ‘ pre’ and ‘2 years post’ the appointment of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) from 2002 – 2019. Of the 5825 appointments, just 578 were women. The paper also utilises a Natural Language Processing (NLP) analysis to track language use relating to an individual’s professional profile. In this way, the study can determine the talent profiles of individual executives. This study hypothesised that whilst women CEOs and CFOs may result in enhanced organisational performance that talent is distributed equally across genders.
Organisations that appointed women executives saw an increase in profit and stock performance. By contrast, the impact of men’s organisational returns was statistically indistinguishable. These results do not necessarily mean that women are more talented than men. The study instead found a positive correlation in the language used in executive biographies between all women executives and the most successful male executives. This analysis implies women are routinely overlooked in favour of men who are not as talented and that C-suite, women are judged by the performance of men in the top 90th percentile of male executive leaders.
To read more research summaries on how to tap into women talent, visit:
Women’s Progression in the Workplace
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