Who leads the 2026 S&P 100?

CEO pipelines can narrow long before a board sets out to choose its next top leader.

As soaring artificial intelligence adoption and geopolitical and economic uncertainties create compounding volatility, executive team demographics have not remained high on every board’s priority list. At the same time, these complex issues put ever greater demands on the CEO role, contributing to a significant decline in interest in the top job across the C-suite.

That combination pressures CEO pipelines. However, it can also be an opportunity for boards to widen the candidate lens. And with men holding 93% of today’s S&P 100 CEO roles, it’s clear that half the population is being under-utilized when it comes to expanding CEO pipelines. An important starting point is understanding where women are represented today, and where they may still be overlooked.

Now in its third iteration¹, Russell Reynolds Associates’ analysis of the S&P 100’s executive leadership gender diversity examines where women leaders’ representation stands today, how it’s changed since 2022, and whether prior changes have endured. This year, we combine snapshots from 2022, 2024, and 2026 with longitudinal tracking of leaders and organizations observed across those years, focusing on leaders expressly named to an organization’s executive committee.

Our findings tell a nuanced story. Over the past four years, women leaders’ overall representation in the S&P 100 has changed relatively little (28% to 29%). But that aggregate stability masks important nuance beneath the surface.

• Women leaders still hold fewer leadership roles than their male counterparts at the role and team level. This gap widens within the roles that wield the most influence and typically lead to the top job.

• In 2026, women hold a mere 7% of the S&P 100’s CEO roles.

• Only four executive teams are made up of at least 50% women.

• Since 2022, men in “CEO feeder roles” were 5x more likely than women in those same roles to be appointed to the top job. 

• Team-level representation shifts are often limited and short-lived.

As workforce demographic reporting requirements face potential elimination for the first time in sixty years, visibility into who holds organizational power and influence may become harder to maintain. Yet understanding what sits beneath the headline numbers is critical to identifying where advancement is enduring and where barriers remain.

This report provides a rigorous view of where women executives’ representation is changing, where it’s holding, and what these shifts mean for boards, CEOs, and CHROs building the next generation of senior leadership.

Where are we now? Women’s 2026 representation across S&P 100 leadership

Well-trod ground that bears rewalking: Women hold fewer leadership roles than their male counterparts, especially in jobs that wield the most influence

While women account for 50.9% of the US population, they hold only 29% of the leadership roles at its top organizations (Figure 1).

This gap widens significantly at the top of the house. As of Q3 2026, women held a mere 7% of the CEO roles in the S&P 100.

The traditional CEO feeder roles of CFO, COO, and P&L leaders also show significant gaps: women hold just 10% of S&P 100 COO roles, 21% of the CFO roles, and 24% of the P&L roles, further narrowing their representation in CEO pipelines.

Figure 1: S&P 100 gender distribution by executive roles (2026)

Only four S&P 100 organizations have executive teams with at least 50% women today

While it’s important to understand the gender composition of the complete S&P 100 executive population, it’s perhaps even more crucial to understand how it varies between companies. With that, we analyzed each S&P 100 leadership team, only including organizations with seven or more executives on the top team (93 in total).

For the first time since we began this analysis, there were no executive leadership teams comprised solely of men. However, this doesn’t indicate broader shifts within the S&P 100, as only four teams have at least 50% women amongst senior leadership, down from six two years ago (Figure 2).

As of Q3 2026, four S&P 100 senior leadership teams have only one woman executive onboard. While most teams (59) are comprised of less than one-third women, no teams have women represented in at least two-thirds of roles.

Figure 2: 2026 S&P 100 executive leadership team gender diversity snapshot

^{Source: RRA Proprietary Analysis, S&P 100 leadership teams, 2026. Analysis includes 93 S&P 100 companies with at least seven executives on their identified leadership team, representing 1,512 executives in total. Categories are cumulative, not mutually exclusive.}

While the 2026 results provide important insight into the S&P’s current state, they don’t tell us how leaders arrived there or whether progression is consistent across genders. To answer that question, we tracked individual leaders’ journeys over time.

Since 2022, men in “CEO feeder” roles were 5x more likely than women in those same roles to be appointed to the top job

Tracking leaders in S&P 100 organizations across the last four years revealed two distinct gaps along the pathway to CEO: women were less likely to hold the roles that most often lead to CEO appointments, and, among those who did hold those roles, they were less likely than men to progress to CEO.

Between 2022 and 2026, 22 leaders we tracked moved from non-CEO into CEO roles within the S&P 100. All but one of these leaders came from four occupations: COO (4), CFO (2), P&L leaders (13), and commercial leaders(2)²  (an emergent feeder over the last two years).

In 2022, nearly half (48.4%) of men in S&P 100 non-CEO roles held one of these four feeder positions, compared with 29.5% of women. That creates the first gap in the pathway to CEO: women are less likely to be represented in the roles from which CEOs are most often appointed (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Gender differences on path to CEO (2022 to 2026)

^{Source: RRA Proprietary Analysis, S&P 100 leadership teams, 2026 (n=100 companies, 1552 executives); 2024 (n=100 companies, 1551 executives); 2022 (n=100 companies, 1576 executives). Difference 1 includes 2022 non-CEO leaders (n = 1,474). Difference 2 includes leaders in the four highlighted roles in 2022 who were also observed in 2026 (n = 242).}

The second gap: of those feeder-role leaders, 10.3% of men became CEOs by 2026, compared with just 2.1% of women (or, only one woman).

These differences are reinforced by where gains in representation have occurred (Figure 4). The roles that have seen the highest rise in women’s representation since 2022...

1) tend to have historically higher representations of women, and

2) are less likely to lead to CEO appointments: CHRO (up 10 percentage points), CMO (up 7 pp), and Operations/Supply Chain/Logistics (up 7 pp).

Within the CEO and CEO feeder roles, women’s representation remained consistently low. The share of women P&L leaders increased by 4pp—moving from 20% in 2022 to 24% in 2024 and remaining unchanged in 2026. Women CFOs increased by 3pp over the last four years, and the share of women COOs remained steady. Women lost the most ground in commercial roles (down 10 pp).

Women’s representation in CEO roles declined from 9% in 2022 to 7% in 2026. While our latest CEO Turnover Index found that women CEO appointments rose globally to 16% in H1 2026, that trend isn’t playing out in the S&P 100.

Figure 4: Change in S&P 100 women leaders’ representation by executive role (2022 – 2026)

^{Source: RRA Proprietary Analysis, S&P 100 leadership teams, 2026 (n=100 companies, 1552 executives); 2024 (n=100 companies, 1551 executives); 2022 (n=100 companies, 1576 executives). This figure compares year-specific snapshots and changes represent the percentage-point difference in women’s representation within each role between 2022 and 2026 observations.}

Team-level representation shifts are often limited and short-lived

Rises in women’s representation have been concentrated at lower thresholds

Our longitudinal analysis of the 81 S&P 100 organizations³ observed in 2022, 2024, and 2026 shows clear movement at lower representation thresholds. From 2022 to 2026, the share of companies with leadership teams comprised of at least 25% women rose 10 percentage points, from 59% to 69%. The share with at least one-third women also rose 10 points, from 31% to 41% (Figure 5).

But that movement did not extend to the 50% threshold. The share of organizations with leadership teams comprised of at least 50% women moved just one percentage point, from 4% in 2022 to 5% in 2026. As noted above, in 2026, only four of the 81 organizations we tracked had leadership teams comprised of at least 50% women.

The pattern is clear: while more companies have reached a 25% or 33% threshold in women’s representation on their executive teams, few have an even gender split.

Figure 5: Longitudinal change in S&P 100 executive team composition (2022 – 2026)

^{Source: RRA Proprietary Analysis, S&P 100 Leadership Teams, 2026 (n = 100 companies, 1,552 executives); 2024 (n = 100 companies, 1,551 executives); 2022 (n = 100 companies, 1576 executives). Longitudinal analysis included 81 organizations observed in 2022, 2024, and 2026.}

Slippery gains: Team-level representation increases aren’t often sustained over time

Without looking at how team representation changes over time, organizations often find themselves incorrectly assuming they’ve widened the aperture. Tracking leadership teams from the same organizations over time allowed us to evaluate whether changes in representation tend to stick. 

Among the 81 organizations that were tracked over time, there has been movement on increasing gender representation:

• 62% of S&P 100 companies increased the share of women on their leadership teams from 2022 to 2026, 

• 37% decreased the share of women, 

• and 1% had the same representation as in 2022. 

However, progress was rarely consistent or sustained, as only 22% of the organizations showed improvement in their gender representation across both time intervals. Instead, fluctuation was much more common, as 43% showed an improvement during one two-year timeframe and a decline in another.

Figure 6: Fluctuations in S&P 100 executive leadership team composition (2022-2026)

^{Source: RRA Proprietary Analysis, S&P 100 Leadership Teams, 2026 (n = 100 companies, 1,552 executives); 2024 (n = 100 companies, 1,551 executives); 2022 (n = 100 companies, 1576 executives). Longitudinal analysis included 81 organizations observed in 2022, 2024, and 2026. Numbers in parentheses are company counts. Fluctuation means women’s representation increased and then decreased, or decreased and then increased, across two periods.}

Some of this is beyond an organization’s control. Leaders leave jobs for myriad reasons. Yet our research consistently finds that traditional organizational development programs and succession pipelines are not always as effective for women leaders. The fluctuations observed here raise an important question about the patterns surrounding leadership changes and how organizations can better support and retain the entire executive team.

Our CEO Progression Blueprint provides a framework for making this progression continuous and dynamic. Done well, it allows organizations to build the capabilities they will need while preserving flexibility as business needs change. This creates greater transparency among executives, the sitting CEO, and the board about how talent is developing.

Boards can relieve CEO pipeline pressures by turning succession from a moment into a system, expanding optionality, preparing for more than one future, and building a stronger foundation for leadership continuity and long-term performance.

To learn more, visit The New CEO Progression Blueprint: Expanding Optionality During Uncertain Times.

Authors

Margot McShane co-leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Board & CEO Advisory practice and is the co-founder of RRA Artemis. She is based in San Francisco.

Hetty Pye is a senior member of Russell Reynolds Associates’ Board & CEO Advisory practice and is the co-founder of RRA Artemis. She is based in London.

Leah Christianson is a member of The Leadership Lab at Russell Reynolds Associates. She is based in San Francisco.

Corey Tatel is a member of The Leadership Lab at Russell Reynolds Associates. He is based in Washington DC.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the following colleagues for their contributions to this data collection and analysis.

• Ladye Cook of RRA’s Board & CEO practice’s Commercial Strategy & Insights team

• Olivia Wagner of RRA’s Business Technology Office

• Itta Behrman and Ellie Langdon, RRA’s 2026 San Francisco summer interns

Methodology

Defining leadership teams

For the analysis, RRA examined the senior leadership teams of S&P 100 companies, focusing on leaders explicitly identified by their organizations as members of the executive committee or equivalent senior leadership body. This includes 1,552 executives on the leadership team at these companies, identified using Boardex (a people intelligence data provider) and each company’s own website.

Data was collected and analyzed in Q3 2026. Any changes to the S&P 100 and leadership team compositions after Q3 are not reflected in this report.

To move past gender diversity generalizations toward a substantive analysis of those who hold the most power and influence within these organizations, our analysis focuses on the leaders explicitly named to the executive committee.

We compared the composition of those teams with the US population by gender from the US Census Bureau. The size and nature of top leadership teams vary across organizations, ranging from 57 executives on the largest team to just 3 executives on the smallest.

Identifying gender

Gender data comes directly from Boardex. Due to the sensitivity and complexity of this data, no data is reported on individuals, and all data is analyzed and reported in the aggregate.

Mapping job/role types

Our data sources (Boardex and company websites) provide information on each executive's job title and responsibilities. However, there is a high degree of variability in that information, which is both a facet of differences in specific job titles for common functional roles and differences in organizational structures and between industries.

We designed a role categorization process whereby each executive was tagged to a specific role. In some instances, only one executive in each company could be tagged to the role, while in other instances multiple individuals could be tagged to the same role category. See the table below for more details.

Analytical approach

Our analysis uses both year-specific snapshots and longitudinal comparisons. Snapshot analyses describe the S&P 100 leadership population observed in each study year independently. Leaders and organizations did not need to appear in another study year to be included. Role-level snapshot analyses included 1,576 executives in 2022, 1,551 in 2024, and 1,552 in 2026.

For company-level snapshot analyses of executive team composition, we included organizations with at least seven executives on their identified leadership team. This resulted in 95 organizations in 2022, 97 in 2024, and 93 in 2026.

Longitudinal analyses track the same leaders or organizations across multiple observations. Company-level longitudinal analyses were limited to 81 organizations observed in 2022, 2024, and 2026 that had at least seven executives in each observation. Leader-level longitudinal analyses matched individuals across the observation years relevant to each analysis. Because the required observations differ by question, sample sizes vary across leader-level longitudinal analyses and are reported with the relevant figures.

Footnotes

¹ RRA began its S&P 100 gender diversity analysis in 2022. We repeated this analysis in 2024. This year, we expanded our executive leadership gender diversity analysis to five populations: the S&P 100, FTSE 100, DAX40, CAC40, and ASX 100. While this article focuses on our learnings about the S&P, we will also compare learnings about women leaders’ representation across these five index subsets.

² Refers to leaders in merchandizing, retail, revenue, sales, eCommerce, growth, and customer (CX) roles. See methodology for more details.