Women on Boards and Beyond: 2023

We have been tracking gender diversity of corporate boards since 2009. Our annual report highlights trends across markets and sectors for large- and mid-cap companies and provides an overview of the state of diversity on boards and in other corporate leadership roles. This year, we expanded our lens to include racial and ethnicity data as well as gender representation at different management levels. To bring in an aspect of equity, we also analyzed CEO pay by gender.

Progress on diversity continued, but at a slow pace

• Women held 25.8% of board seats at large- and mid-cap companies, up from 24.5% in 2022, but growth slowed compared to previous years.

• Only 9.1% of board-chair roles were held by women. Although still very low, this percentage has more than doubled since 2019.

• Boards were more diverse than executive suites, both in terms of gender and ethnicity. Gender diversity was greater than ethnic and racial diversity for both boards and executives, according to the limited U.K. and U.S. data available in this area.

• CEO positions remained male dominated. Our analysis suggests, however, gender-pay equity at the CEO level for base salaries and stock awards.

Women in Corporate Leadership Roles

The following interactive chart gives a visual overview of how gender representation in different corporate leadership roles has evolved for the constituents of the MSCI ACWI, MSCI World and MSCI Emerging Markets Indexes over the last five years.

How to interact with this chart: Use the drop-down menu at the bottom of the chart to select the index to plot. Hover over any bar to learn more about gender diversity data for constituents of the chosen index.