For the first time in the list’s 68-year history Fortune 500, orMore than 10% of companies are headed by women. We can see this as a step forward, or we can see that although there are slow improvements, it’s still not enough: 90% of the companies on the list are still headed by men. We are far from parity, this is understandable, but the trend is at least positive.
Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by the journal Fortune which ranks the top 500 US corporate firms based on their earnings. January of this year WithFive new female administrators joined the heads of companies from the list bringing the number of women leaders to 53 and the percentage to 10%. In December, Under Armor announced that Stephanie Linnartz would become president, CEO and board member, replacing Patrick Frisk, who stepped down in June. Foot Locker chose Mary Dillon as its new CEO last summer, replacing Dick Johnson, and even outside of CEO positions, women are slowly taking over the top positions at other big brands. Nicole Otto, for example, was recently named president of global branding at The North Face in June. At Nike, women now lead the company’s three geographies: Sarah Mensah is vice president/general manager for North America, Amy Montagne for Asia Pacific and Latin America, and Angela Dong for China. Additionally, in April 2020, Heidi O’Neal was named the first female president of Nike Consumer and Marketplace.
Fortune suggests that the increase in the number of women in leadership positions is partly due to greater diversity at the board level: 15 years ago, women made up just 15.7% of board seats. From Fortune 500, now we have 25.5%. “For many years,” he explains. Fortune“share of companies Fortune 500 led by female CEOs remained unchanged at about 8%. Each new appointment is followed by a resignation; in such a small universe, every business step counts.”
Source: Elle