Shocking Male vs Female CEO Statistics 2023

By Darina L. Last Updated: March 07, 2023

With the rise of female empowerment and gender bias issues, a lot has changed over the past decade. Women are standing up and demanding equal rights to their male counterparts - and boy, is it paying off! CEO statistics show that there has been tremendous growth when it comes to females in senior management positions. Females are claiming their rightful place as forces to be reckoned with!

However, this doesn’t mean that men are standing down at all. The continuous fight between male and female are still proceeding and these CEO statistics reveal shocking evidence.

Amazing CEO Statistics (Editor's Choice)

29% of senior management is female.
33 Fortune 500 companies are led by female CEOs.
31% of senior roles are held by women in the U.S.
12.5% of American women are employed as Chief Financial Officers in Fortune 500 Companies.
Female CEOs are more likely to be fired than male CEOs.
Denise Coates, CEO of Bet365, earned $277 Million in 2019.
Male vs female CEO statistics show a big gap in individual salaries paid.

Amazing Female CEOs Statistics

Let's get started, ladies and gentlemen:

1. 29% of senior management in 2019 is female.

The percentage of female CEOs worldwide has increased drastically over the last decade. At the end of 2019, 29% of all senior management roles, globally, are fulfilled by women. This has been recorded as the highest number yet.

2. 33 female CEOs lead Fortune 500 companies.

Fortune 500 CEO statistics prove that in 2019 a whopping 33 females have been appointed in CEO positions. Even though this is only 6.6% of the group, it’s a drastic change from 2018’s 4.8%. In 2018, 24 females were CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, but the current 33 are the new record for women CEOs. The fortune 500 companies with the highest rankings with female CEOs are General Motors, IBM, Anthem Inc., Lockheed Martin, Best Buy, and Duke Energy.

3. 87% of global businesses have one woman in a management position.

By the end of 2019, a great increase in female management roles worldwide has surfaced. Female CEO statistics from 2019 has shown that a groundbreaking 87% of global businesses have at least one woman in a senior management position.

4. 31% of senior roles are held by women in the U.S.

The percentage of female managers in the U.S. is just above 30%. Only 31% of senior roles that are offered by U.S. companies are held by women.

5. 12.5% of American women are employed as Chief Financial Officers in Fortune 500 companies.

Female CEO statistics prove that American women hold their own in the financial industry. Constituting 53% of all financial managers, 61% are accountants, and 37% are financial analysts. Only 12.5% of women hold positions as the chief financial officer in a Fortune 500 company, according to Fortune 500 CEO statistics 2018. This might cause concern when it comes to female job satisfaction statistics, and whether females have enough room for professional growth.

6. Female Human Resource Managers are the shocking 77.9% of all in the same position.

An industry that’s popularly ruled by females is Human Resources. By the beginning of 2019, 77.9% of women were managers in Human Resources. In Medical and Health Services a staggering 72% of women were in leadership positions.

7. 33% of white women in the U.S hold management positions.

The percentage of female managers in the U.S. includes women from all ethnic backgrounds. A third of these female management roles are occupied by white women. 6.2% are Latina, 3.8% are African American, and 2.4% are Asian. Ursula Burns, is a famous female CEO that worked for the Xerox Corporation from 2009-2017. She is the only African American to serve as CEO for a Fortune 500 company.

8. Oracle’s female CEO is the highest paid one of 2016.

Female CEO statistics show that the highest-paid female CEO of 2016 is Safra A. Catz, who received an annual salary of $40 million. Which, believe it or not, was a downgrade from her 2015 salary of $53 million. This was all from stock awards and her base salary which bordered close to $1 million. Proven to be one of the top executives to ever manage an organization.

9. Denise Coates, CEO of Bet365, еarned $277 million in 2019.

UK owned betting company, Bet365, has the highest-earning CEO in the world. Denise Coates got a paycheck of $277 million in 2019, in addition to the $92.5 million payouts of the company’s dividends. Alongside her brother, John Coates, she discovered the company in her dad’s mobile home. Since then she has made a killing, being a great example of how to be a successful female leader.

Male vs Female CEO Stats

Here we go:

10. Women CEOs received $23.1 million on average in 2016.

In 2016, women CEOs got nearly 44% more than their male counterparts. An average annual compensation of $23.1 million was paid to female CEOs in 2016, whereas men only received an average annual compensation of $16 million. These statistics are debatable, because Women CEOs like Coates and Catz pushes up averages with their individually high annual salaries. Also, we should consider that an extremely small percentage of CEOs are in fact women.

11. Female CEOs are more likely to be fired than male CEOs.

Females are 45% more likely to be fired than males in CEO positions. According to male vs female CEO statistics 2019 it is evident that females are more likely to get the boot, no matter whether the company is performing at a high rate.

12. Male vs female CEO Stats show a big gap in individual salaries paid.

At the beginning of 2018, the average compensation for female CEOs was $14.5 million. It was $12.6 million for male CEOs. The study included 346 CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies, of which only 21 were females. It was concluded that there’s a major gap in individual salaries paid. Thomas Rutledge, CEO of Charter Communications, earned an annual compensation of $99 million, compared to IBM’s female CEO, Virginia Rometty, with annual compensation of $32 million. Furthermore, CBS’s CEO, Leslie Moonves, received an annual salary of $68 million, compared to the $25 million of PepsiCo's female CEO salary, Indra Nooyi. Famous CEO, Jeff Bezos, got a salary of $107 million in 2019.

Gender wage gap statistics are not to be underestimated.

Moving on:

13. Those CEO positions are usually replaced by males - 78% of only 22% of women are hired to fill in a position.

As CEO of U.S.-based companies step out, they are replaced with other suitable candidates. Male vs female CEO statistics in 2019 stated that only 22% of all available CEO positions are refilled by women. That’s compared to 78% of CEO replacements that are male. It is based on the theory that most companies’ board of directors are also male-dominated. Claiming that men are the ones making the employment decisions, which are apparently gender-bias. There has been a great increase in women CEOs over the last decade, though. The apparel industry had the highest percentage increase in CEO replacements with 67%. Real estate was second with 42%. It is followed by financial services with 24.5%, and the food industry with 23%.

14. The average annual salary of a California CEO is $228,270.

The U.S. has almost 200,000 CEOs nationwide. Although the salary of a Fortune 500 company CEO reaches millions of dollars, average U.S. based companies’ CEOs don’t earn nearly as much. U.S.’s average annual salary for CEOs is $200,000. The average CEO salary of a California based CEO is $228,270. A Florida CEO salary is relatively smaller at $187,870 per year. Ohio-based Abercrombie & Fitch CEO, Fran Horowitz, is a female CEO with an average annual salary of $201,000. And Wisconsin-based male CEO of ManPowerGroup, Jonas Prising, with an average annual salary of $154,820.

In Conclusion

When we look at successful women's role in management, it is evident that they are just as capable as their male counterparts. According to American Progress, 50.8% of the U.S. population is female. They hold 57% of all undergraduate degrees and 59% of all master’s degrees.

From the U.S. workforce, they account for 48.5% of all law degrees and 47.5% of medical degrees. Regardless of these 50/50 percentages, CEO statistics still show that only 31% of those in CEO positions are women.

This is also applicable to women in political leadership who by the beginning of 2019, were at only 24%.

It’s shocking to discover the big gap in numbers between men and women CEOs when we look at CEO statistics.

However:

Not all is lost for women who are seeking a management role in the business!

The numbers are climbing, as men all over the world are giving women a chance to be part of a successful company’s board of directors.

Table of contents

Amazing CEO Statistics (Editor's Choice)

Frequently Asked Questions

How Many CEOs Are There in America?

There are 195,530 CEOs in the United States of America. The state with the most CEOs is California with a wide margin of 30,290 CEOs. The runner-up is Florida with 20,860 CEOs. Some of Florida’s most famous CEOs are Apple’s Tim Cook, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Other leading states are Ohio with 4,420 CEOs, Utah with 4,850 CEOs, Wisconsin with 5,240 CEOs, Illinois with 9,650 CEOs, and New York with 10,430 CEOs.

What is the average age of a CEO?

On average, CEOs retire when they are 62 years of age. Even though CEOs retire after this age, they don’t really stop working. Most retired CEOs will continue to take on other business ventures and investments even if it doesn’t fit the typical CEO job description. They continue to work in other leadership positions or as philanthropists for non-profit organizations. Continuing to contribute to the wealth and economy of the U.S.A. One thing is for sure, successful CEOs will never become part of the unemployment statistics, as they continue to work until they physically can’t anymore.

What Degree Do Most CEOs Have?

Getting a quality education is a part of climbing the corporate ladder. Most CEOs earned their Bachelor of Science degrees in Business Administration. Other popular degrees amongst successful CEOs are STEM majors in various fields of engineering.

The CEO of Amazon.com Inc., Jeff Bezos, graduated from the pristine University of Princeton. There are a few exceptions, though, where major CEOs didn’t even graduate from college.

Among these are Matt Mullenweg, who dropped out of college to create Wordpress.com and Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, who dropped out of Harvard. This proves that there isn’t a special formula on how to become a CEO, but with hard work and determination, anything is possible. No matter your gender.

What is the Difference Between a CEO and an Owner?

CEO stands for Chief Executive Officer, this is the person that holds the highest-ranking in the company, whether or not they are the owner of the business. The CEO can solely make all the managerial decisions. Whereas the owner only has sole proprietorship of the company, without having the power to make executive decisions - got it?

What do CEOs Do All Day?

A study conducted by two Harvard professors tracked 27 CEOs (25 men and 2 women). They gathered CEO statistics that measure what CEOs actually do all day. It was discovered that on average, CEOs worked 9.7 hours per weekday and 3.9 hours over weekend days.

They have rigorous schedules of which 75% has to be planned ahead and only 25% are spontaneous. An average percentage of 25 was spent on personal downtime, 29% on sleeping, 31% spent working, 10% traveling, and 5% on vacation. It’s important for most CEOs to get a decent amount of sleep, clocking at least 6-7 hours per night.