The gender gap in CEO tenure robs female executives of time to make their mark

Last year, the average tenure for women running Coins2Day 500 companies was 4.5 years, according to data from Equilar shared exclusively with Fortun e. For men, it was 7.2 years. 

In fact, charting women’s stints against men’s for the past 10 years reveals a persistent gender tenure gap; it has narrowed only slightly since 2014, when men averaged nearly eight years as Coins2Day 500 CEOs and women lasted about three. 

To be sure, our data for women’s time as CEO is drawn from a small sample size—the very problem that makes tenures and chief executive churn relevant. However, as I reported in a piece published yesterday, other organizations have crunched the numbers, too, looking at the Russell 3000 and index companies around the world. Those analyses often faced the same limitations, but they also spotted the same contrast in tenures. 

Regular readers of this newsletter may already be sighing: “That glass cliff.” And they’re right. Women are too often invited to become CEO when a company is already struggling to survive or recovering from self-inflicted injuries at the hands of a ruinous former chief executive. But other gender-based inequities impact how long women thrive in a leadership role, too. For example, activist hedge funds have been found to disproportionately target women CEOs, and some experts believe that women leaders who face relentless sexism voluntarily step down. 

Rusty O’Kelley, a consultant who leads the boards practice at Russell Reynolds Associates, finds fault with what you might call the last mile to the corner office. Top-performing companies with good governance tend to have orderly succession plans and a strong preference for internal candidates, he explains. And CEOs who are promoted internally also tend to have long tenures, partially because they’re usually not taking over during a time of crisis. But the privilege of becoming CEO under such ideal circumstances mainly goes to men because they still dominate the roles that groom chief executives and give boards a view into how a candidate might help a business grow and compete. Right now, women are making the most headway in C-suite positions that typically don’t require critical profit-and-loss oversight. 

In other words, companies need to not only stop hiring women for glass cliff jobs; they also have to guide rising-star female executives to the most solid and promising ground. 

Read my full piece here.

Lila MacLellan
[email protected]

The Broadsheet is Coins2Day’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- Spouse succession. The widow of Alexei Navalny announced on Monday that she would assume her late husband’s role as Russia’s top opposition leader less than a week after his death. Yulia Navalnaya, who has long stayed out of politics to care for the couple’s family, is one of only a few prominent women in Russian politics and promises to lead the movement against Vladimir Putin’s government, which she claims killed her husband. New York Times

- A Cécred launch. Beyoncé's new haircare brand Cécred launched yesterday. The star says the line is "rooted in [her] ancestry" and inspired by a childhood spent in her mother's salon. As part of the launch, Beyoncé's charity announced $500,000 in cosmetology school scholarships. Essence

- Wrong kind of hype. WeightWatchers, the company led by CEO Sima Sistani that's pivoting to GLP-1 drugs, hosted a "hype house" for social media influencers. The event centered around drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro, prompting a swift backlash from influencers, even those who already document their use of the medications. Some weight-loss influencers resent Weight Watchers’ long-held points system and blame it for patterns of disordered eating. Bloomberg 

- Filling in the gap. Banco Santander announced that it eliminated the gender pay gap for employees doing the same work five years after setting out to do so. The bank is still tackling a company-wide gender pay gap of 30% and pursuing its goal of placing women in at least 35% of senior executive roles by 2025. Bloomberg

- Career change. Singer and former Disney Channel star Bridgit Mendler is officially a CEO after launching Northwood Space, a California-based startup designed to ease the process of sending data to and from space. Mendler earned degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Law School while developing the company, which has already raised around $6 million in funding. CNBC

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Comscore appointed Sam Marc as vice president of cross platform solutions. Jayne Hrdlicka stepped down as CEO of Virgin Australia. Unilever chief brand officer Aline Santos is departing after 35 years with the company. Bumble has hired Slack product SVP Ali Rayl as chief product officer and promoted Selby Drummond to CMO.

ON MY RADAR

The beautiful mind of Solange Harper's Bazaar

Everyone knows Sutton Foster can sing. Now we know she can juggle The New York Times

'What is my goal?': inside the tense roundtable to 'define' Jill Biden’s legacy Vanity Fair

PARTING WORDS

"Before, I would never be able to firmly say, 'I don’t care.' Now, especially being a mom, there’s no place for shame."

—Actress and comedian Jenny Slate on cursing during her first Saturday Night Live appearance and the pressure she felt in her 20s