The Eos Foundation’s Women’s Power Gap initiative has recently published a new report analyzing the career trajectories of CEOs at S&P 500 companies, revealing insights into the extra steps women take to achieve the prestigious position.
Although women represent less than 10 percent of CEOs in S&P 500 companies, their representation has grown significantly over the twenty-first-century, rising from nine women CEOs in 2000 to 48 in 2025. Of the 64 new CEOs appointed in 2024, 11 were women, making up 17 percent of all new hires and suggesting there is momentum towards achieving gender equity among the country’s top corporate executives.
Despite their underrepresentation, the report found evidence that many current women CEOs are equally, if not more, qualified than their male counterparts. To become a CEO, a candidate typically must have prior experience in positions with significant profit-and-loss (P&L) and operational responsibility, such as division head, COO, and president. These positions are referred to as “launch roles” from which CEOs are generally selected. According to their analysis, the report authors found that women often served in more P&L roles than men before their advancement to CEO. For example, women CEOs are 32 percent more likely to have served an extra step as president, while men are more likely to have jumped to a CEO appointment following service as a division head or COO.
Furthermore, women in launch positions are significantly more likely to stay on the second-to-last rung of the corporate ladder than reach the final step as CEO. Among S&P 100 companies, women represent 24 percent of launch positions, but only 8 percent of CEOs. Women corporate executives are also significantly more likely to serve in positions without direct P&L responsibility, such as chiefs of human resources, sustainability, and marketing.
To move more women into CEO roles, the authors urge companies to be intentional about ensuring women executives take on P&L responsibility, whether that be through steering them into roles with core operational functions or providing cross-functional training and stretch assignments to provide them with P&L experience outside the purview of their current role. The report authors also encourage current CEOs to audit their organizational cultures and processes to root our bias, create formalized mentorship programs, and listen to the experiences of distinct groups of employees who are underrepresented in senior roles.
“As companies re-evaluate diversity programs, a critical question arises: Will the progress of women in leadership continue? We believe it can — but only if businesses commit to removing structural barriers and ensuring equal opportunity for advancement, regardless of gender, race, or other status,” writes Andrea Silbert, president of the Eos Foundation. “Achieving a true meritocracy remains a work in progress.”