Women on Boards and Beyond – 2025 Report
Female representation on corporate boards continued to grow globally in 2025, though the pace of growth increasingly varied by market, sector and company structure. At a global level, women held 28.3% of board seats at large- and mid-cap companies, up one percentage point from the previous year, and 48.7% of companies reached at least 30% female representation as of October 2025. With board representation becoming more established, future trends may depend less on targets and more on governance structures such as representation in leadership roles and committee composition.
Now in its 16th year, Women on Boards and Beyond examines those pathways with new analysis of board committees, ownership structures and director classifications.
Women held 28.3% of board seats globally in 2025, up from the previous year, but the pace of growth slowed — particularly in developed markets, where gains slowed to 0.7 percentage points as women on boards moved closer to parity.
After drops in growth in 2024, emerging markets saw female representation pick up again in 2025, increasing by 1.3 percentage points, outpacing developed markets.
All-male boards continued to decline globally, with the sharpest drop in emerging markets, dropping from 16.1% to 12.0%.
Despite broader board participation, growth in senior leadership roles remained uneven. Female representation among board chairs, CEOs and CFOs showed signs of stagnation, which may impact the pipeline for future female director candidates.
Women held a higher share of committee seats than board seats overall, with the largest gains on nomination committees in emerging markets — a role that can influence future board and executive appointments.
At the index level, controlled companies had lower female board representation than widely held or principal shareholder firms. Market-level differences in representation at family and founder firms compared to SOEs illustrates differences in governance context when comparing companies globally.
The interactive chart below provides a visual overview of women on boards and in leadership positions across different sectors, as of October 2025.1
Choose a GICS sector and hover over any bar for the data on female representation among constituents of that sector.
Data as of October 2025. This chart shows: (1) the overall percentage of director seats held by women, (2) the percentage of board-chair positions held by women, (3) the percentage of CEO positions held by women and (4) the percentage of CFO positions held by women among constituents of the MSCI ACWI Index by sector as of October 2025. Includes only index constituents covered in our corporate governance research. Both boards of directors (one-tier board structure) and supervisory boards (two-tier board structure) are included. The gender of co-chairs and vice-chairs, where applicable is not considered. Where the gender of the chairs, CEOs/Co-CEOs and CFOs could not be identified based on company disclosures, they were assumed to be male. Source: MSCI Sustainability & Climate. MSCI Sustainability & Climate products and services are provided by MSCI Solutions LLC in the United States and MSCI Solutions (UK) Limited in the United Kingdom and certain other related entities.
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