By Meiko Takayama
2023 was a banner year for women. Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” was 2023’s highest-grossing film, Beyoncé became the winningest artist in GRAMMYs history, and Claudia Golden was the first solo woman awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.
It’s so exciting to see these recent successes since I founded Advancing Women Executives (AWE) with a simple premise: that the world would be a better place if there were more women at the top. Over the last 12 years, we’ve expanded our focus to develop future leaders in all underrepresented groups and allies. Yet we continue to advocate for the advancement of women. Why?
While women have made progress in business—including the largest percentage ever of Fortune 500 companies run by women (over 10%) and approximately 32% of U.S. corporate board seats now occupied by women—positive change remains slow, and is simply not enough.
Here are some sobering facts:
– In 2023, women represented only 1 in 4 C-suite leaders at America’s top corporations, and only 1 in 16 were women of color.
– The broken rung—the barrier women face when first stepping into manager roles—continues to be women’s biggest hurdle to advancement, with only 87 women promoted from entry-level to manager for every 100 men who were promoted last year, and only 73 women of color for every 100 men.
– Women leaders left their corporate jobs at record rates in 2023, and the gap between women and men leaving was the highest it’s ever been.
It’s clear there’s still a lot of work to do to ensure that we’re creating inclusive environments for all, and getting more women to the top. As always, thank you for being part of this journey with us.