Senior business roles held by women up to 24%, global survey finds

As March 8th marks International Women’s Day, a new report, titled Women in Business 2016: Turning promise into practice (based on the annual Grant Thornton survey of 5,520 businesses in 36 economies) reveals a slight increase of women in senior management positions, from 22% to 24%. Yet approximately one-third of businesses still do not have women in leadership positions.

The G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) is statistically among the worst performing regions, with 22% of senior roles occupied by women and 39% of companies with no representation of women in senior roles. Two of the poorest-performing individual countries are Japan - with just 7% senior roles with women - and Germany, with 15%.

Eastern Europe and ASEAN (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos) report the highest proportions of women in leadership at 35% and 34% respectively, and with 16% and 21% of firms with no women in senior management, respectively. Russia tops the list of individual countries with 45% of senior roles held by women, followed by the Philippines at 39%.

“Companies across developed nations have talked the talk on diversity in leadership for long enough,” said Francesca Lagerberg, Grant Thornton International Global leader - tax services, in a statement. “It’s time to put their promises into practice and deliver results. We know that businesses with diverse workforces can outperform their more homogenous peers and are better positioned to adapt to a rapidly changing global business environment.”

For the full report, head to Grant Thornton'ssite here.