Almost no female CEOs in German publicly traded companies
Among the 160 DAX, SDAX, and MDAX companies, there were scarcely any women occupying key leadership roles such as CEO or chairperson of the supervisory board last year. A recent study indicates a decline, with only seven female CEOs remaining instead of the previous nine, as highlighted in the report by the German-Swedish AllBright Foundation. Additionally, the number of female chairpersons of supervisory boards has dropped from eight to six. In both cases, men continue to overwhelmingly dominate, accounting for around 96% of these positions.
The current distribution of power positions in German corporations is "characterized by a significant imbalance for the time being," as stated in the report. Recent progress in the general composition of German executive boards has not altered the situation. The percentage of women in the top management has increased by three percentage points to 17.4% this year – primarily due to gains in MDAX companies.
Mostly just one woman on the board
Companies with female board members are now in the majority. Nevertheless, most firms still have only one woman on the board. "This is becoming the new norm," note Wiebke Ankersen and Christian Berg, the managing directors of the Allbright Foundation. But this understanding is concerning. Sven Hagströmer, the founder of the Allbright Foundation and chairman of the Swedish stock market companies Creades and Avanza, has different words for the phenomenon: "It looks like an alibi."
In other countries, the situation is quite different. Boards with multiple women have long been the norm in the US, France, and the UK. In the US, for example, more than half of the companies have a female representation of at least 30% on the board. This is considered a "critical mass for changing team dynamics." In Germany, only 28% of companies achieve that value. All the other countries examined by the foundation — the US, the UK, Sweden, France, and Poland — perform better in this regard.
