Tenure of women CEOs lags that of men

What you probably already know: Gender parity in the C-suite is still a long way off. At the current rate of change, it will take 72.5 years to reach CEO gender parity, according to an analysis by global consultancy Russell Reynolds Associates. The good news? Two years ago, it was 81 years. Female CEOs, on average, also remain in their roles for an average of only 5.2 years, compared to 7.9 for men. Put another way, men spend 50% longer in their seats than women. Several high-profile female CEOs have recently left their companies, including X’s Linda Yaccarino, Hershey’s Michele Buck and Debra Crew, who led U.K. alcohol company Diageo.

Why? Reasons vary. Buck said she was retiring. Crew, who served as CEO for only two years, abruptly left after reported infighting within the company. Yaccarino — who also served only two years — had to deal with X owner Elon Musk during a controversial time for both him and the company. Russell Reynolds Associates has identified four main themes as to why women CEOs’ tenures are shorter:
• They’re more likely to be fired, regardless of performance.
• They’re more likely to leave for personal reasons or other opportunities.
• Women CEOs tend to be more heavily scrutinized.
• Women CEOs are more likely to be promoted during challenging times (as in the case of Yaccarino), a phenomenon dubbed “The Glass Cliff.”

What it means: It’s complicated, but sexism clearly plays a major role here. A Challenger, Gray & Christmas report from July 9 notes that only one-quarter of rising CEOs were women in 2025, down almost 30% from the same period last year. Through the first quarter of this year, 23% of CEOs who left their positions were women, while men filled more than half of those roles. What’s more, of the almost 500 men who have left so far this year, only 17% were replaced by women, a drop from 2024. In short, 2025 has been a tough year for women leaders.

What happens now? Several factors are often cited for the lack of women CEOs, including the reluctance of boards to hire women and that women have softer skills (while men are perceived as more analytical). A report from the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance lists another, more likely reason: The stark gender gap “lies in the scarcity of women in candidate pools. In the end, our main conclusion is that the challenge of low female representation extends further down the job ladder, rooted in the limited presence of women in the initial applicant pool.” That’s unlikely to be fixed anytime soon, but it does indicate the need for a more comprehensive approach to the problem.