This Saturday, I’ll be joining an important and timely conversation at the BPW Cyprus 7th Mediterranean Symposium, participating in a fireside chat with Lena Panayiotou focused on a critical question: Leadership 50/50—Why We’re Not There Yet.
It’s a question that feels increasingly urgent—and frustrating—given the reality we still face.
Progress Without Parity
Despite decades of dialogue, initiatives, and commitments, women around the world remain undervalued, underrepresented, underestimated, and underpaid. While progress has been made, parity in leadership remains elusive.
The gap is not due to a lack of talent, ambition, or capability—it is the result of systems that continue to reward familiarity over fairness and access over merit. The idea that equity will arrive naturally with time has proven false. Time alone does not dismantle structural barriers. Intentional action does.
What the Numbers Actually Say
I want to put figures behind that, because “we’re not there yet” is easy to nod along with and easy to file away.
The World Economic Forum’s work on global gender parity estimates that, at the current rate of progress, closing the overall gender gap will take on the order of 123 years. That is roughly five generations. The gap specific to economic participation and opportunity is projected to take even longer.
Look at the leadership numbers underneath that. Across the decade to 2025, women’s representation in senior leadership rose by fewer than three percentage points, reaching around a quarter of C-suite roles and just under a third of board seats. But the figure that should concern every executive team is narrower: women hold approximately 19% of chief executive positions.
Board seats and C-suite titles have moved. The role that actually sets direction has barely moved at all.
The Part Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud
Here is the finding that changes the shape of this conversation: progress has not merely slowed. On some measures it has reversed.
The share of women among new senior leadership appointments peaked in 2022 at close to 35%, and has declined in each of the years since. Momentum in the C-suite and on boards has plateaued over the same period.
This matters because it dismantles the most comfortable story we tell ourselves—that the direction of travel is settled and only the pace is in question. It is not settled. A trend that can stall can also retreat, and it has. Any strategy premised on “this will resolve itself eventually” is now demonstrably wrong.
From Invitation to Ownership
One of the most important shifts women must make—collectively and individually—is moving beyond the mindset of waiting to be included. The time for asking permission has passed. Leadership today requires the confidence to pull up our own chairs, to claim space without apology, and to lead with conviction even when the room was not designed with us in mind.
Just as critical is the responsibility to ensure we are not the last ones through the door—to actively support, sponsor, and advocate for other women as they rise. Equity is not a solo pursuit. It is built through shared momentum.
I want to be precise about one word there: sponsor. Mentorship and sponsorship are routinely treated as the same thing, and they are not. A mentor gives you advice. A sponsor spends their own credibility putting your name into a conversation you are not in the room for. Women are, by most accounts, generously mentored and comparatively under-sponsored. That distinction is a large part of why the pipeline narrows precisely at the point where advancement stops being about performance and starts being about advocacy.
Why Conversations Like This Matter
Forums like the BPW Mediterranean Symposium play a vital role in moving the conversation from theory to action. Fireside chats are powerful not because they offer easy answers, but because they create space for honesty—about what’s working, what isn’t, and what we must do differently.
That work has a longer history than most people realise. BPW International was founded in Geneva in 1930 by Dr. Lena Madesin Phillips, and today holds consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council with affiliates in more than 100 countries. This is not a recent campaign. It is a nearly century-old infrastructure, which is worth remembering when the pace of change feels discouraging.
Leadership 50/50 is not just a gender issue. It is a business issue, an economic issue, and a societal issue. Organizations that fail to reflect the world they serve limit their own potential for innovation, resilience, and growth.
The Work Ahead
Achieving true equity in leadership will require more than policy statements or symbolic gestures. It will demand courage—from institutions willing to redesign power structures, and from individuals willing to challenge norms, take risks, and lead visibly.
If I were to name where the work actually sits, it would be here:
- Measure appointments, not headcount. Aggregate representation can hold steady while the flow into senior roles quietly reverses. The appointment rate is the leading indicator.
- Track sponsorship, not just mentorship. Ask who in your organization has someone willing to advocate for them in a room they are not in.
- Examine the succession list. Board seats are visible and therefore managed. Chief executive succession is where the real distribution of power shows up.
- Treat a plateau as a result. If a programme has produced no movement in three years, it is not maturing. It is finished, and something else is needed.
This conversation is not about blame. It’s about responsibility—and opportunity.
I look forward to an engaging and necessary discussion with Lena Panayiotou and the broader BPW community as we examine what leadership equity truly requires and how we move forward with purpose.
Parity figures cited draw on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report series and its research on gender parity in senior leadership.
Related reading: When the World Tilts: The 2030 Challenge and Women Leading Through Change: Reflections from BPW Galway’s 40th Anniversary Luncheon, or browse the full Insights archive.
A version of this article was originally published on LinkedIn.