2024 Women’s Report: Benchmarking Executive Women Trends

— ON Partners recognizes Women’s History Month with 2024 Women’s Report —

 

---

In recognition of Women’s History Month, ON Partners explores the complex terrain of gender equity and compensation parity at the executive level. As non-conformists in the executive hiring domain, we seek to bring transparency and clarity to this ongoing dialogue.

What we know:

• Despite comprising nearly 57% of the workforce, only 35% of women hold management positions.
• The McKinsey Women in the Workplace 2023 report illustrates a significant increase in women’s representation in C-suite and senior vice president roles since 2015.
• According to the 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report by Payscale, women earn 83 cents on the dollar compared to men, with executives facing an even wider gap at 72 cents.

Utilizing thousands of data points across 2k+ executive searches, we dig into key insights including:

• Executive women’s compensation benchmarks.
• Examination of year-over-year increases in executive women hiring.
• Analysis of executive women tenure trends.
• Qualitative insights from our executive search experts into executive women hiring trends.

---

ON Partners Releases 2024 Women’s Report

---

Benchmarking Compensation Trends

 

Narrowing Gap: While executive men are still averaging higher total compensation, executive women are closing the gap YoY. In 2023, executive men averaged total compensation of $461K while executive women averaged $452K.

Higher Base: Executive women negotiated slightly higher average base salaries in 2023 than executive men.

Lower Bonus: On average, executive men secured bigger bonuses and equity payouts in 2023.

---

The Executive Pipeline

 

Future Pipeline: When isolating Director and VP roles as a pipeline of future C-suite executives, women are leading in 2023 average total compensation.

Tech on the Rise: The highest area of growth in executive women appointments in the last two years has been in technology sectors including software, IT, healthtech, and semiconductor.

Functionally, over 60% of the executive placements for marketing, human resources, and customer experience roles in the last few years were women. However, less than 15% of the executive leadership placements such as CEO, CTO, CIO, and COO were women in the same time period.

---

Women on the Move

 

Public Companies Lead the Way: Over the last few years, public companies have statistically hired more executive women than private and VC-backed organizations. However, VC-backed companies have had the fastest growth rate in executive women placements over the last three years.

Tenure Comparison: The last ten years of data illustrate executive women consistently change jobs faster than men. And, in the last few years, men have increased their tenure in a role while women remain consistent in switching jobs on average every 2.4 years.

---

Insights from our Experts

 

Women in Life Sciences – Insights from Suzanne Zebedee, Ph.D.

“In life sciences/healthcare, we do see fewer women candidates for early-stage company C-suite roles. The executive positions where we look to source and recruit first-time CEOs are COO, CCO, and CBO roles. It would be great to have more women gaining experience in these C-level roles as a pathway to increase women executive leaders and women CEOs in the industry.”

(Related article: 2023 Talent Intelligence Report}

—

Negotiation – Insights from Tara Flickinger

“When it comes to compensation negotiations, it is important to articulate directly and clearly what you think is fair for your contribution and expertise. Too often we see such an emphasis on first year’s cash that candidates lose sight of the long game and important components of the total package, including long-term incentives and equity.”

{Related article: 2023 Executive Women’s Impact Report}

—

Women in Supply Chain – Insights from Heidi Hoffman

“I have not seen that women supply chain executives make less money than their male counterparts. The comp levels for all of these executives has been rising tremendously, as the role moves in to the C-suite and takes on a more strategic position. Interestingly, I have seen an increased number of female entrepreneurs in supply chain, identifying long standing issues and building technology-driven solutions to solve them.”

{Related article: Evolving Legacy of Women in the Supply Chain}

—

Thanks for diving into the 2024 Women’s Report and joining our ON community of non-conformist leaders. Don’t hold back – share your thoughts on the report with ON Partners and stir up the dialogue. And, check out our DEI in the ON community to learn more about inclusive leadership teams.