Germany’s Biggest Companies Top 25% Female Leadership For First Time
Mandatory quota law passed in 2020 has improved equality but country remains behind western peers
The proportion of women in leadership roles in German business has reached a record high, in a sign the country is finally beginning to catch up with western peers on improving gender equality in the workplace.
A study by consultancy Russell Reynolds found that women now occupy more than 25 per cent of senior management positions in Germany’s 40 largest listed companies, an increase of two percentage points over 2023.
The study found that the share of women in top jobs had risen from 13.3 per cent in 2020 to 25.4 per cent now, a new record.
Germany now has four female chief executives of Dax-listed companies for the first time: Bettina Orlopp at Commerzbank, Karin Rådström at Daimler Truck and Belén Garijo at Merck and Helen Giza at Fresenius Medical Care.
But a recent report by the Swedish-German AllBright Foundation found that the eurozone’s largest economy is still a long way behind international peers, especially the UK.
It said women occupied 32.1 per cent of senior management roles in the 40 biggest listed companies in the UK, 30.1 per cent in the US, 28.8 per cent in France and 28.2 per cent in Sweden.
The foundation said that in the UK, there was much more public awareness of the need for equality and diversity and “expectations of companies are high”.
The improvement in Germany reflects the success of a law passed in 2020 that established a mandatory quota for women in the senior management of publicly listed companies. The measure came after ministers determined that previous attempts to encourage companies to hire more female executives on a voluntary basis had failed.
The law stipulated that management boards with more than three members had to include at least one woman. Business groups said at the time that it represented unwarranted interference in the workings of companies and that there was in any case a lack of suitable female candidates for senior roles.
But in its study, the AllBright Foundation said the UK had managed to achieve better results in gender equality without imposing quotas, focusing instead on measures designed to ensure that many more women enter management positions at all levels.
The AllBright authors said Germany had “wasted too much time” on the quota debate.
The Russell Reynolds results echo those of a similar survey by the German organisation Women on Supervisory Boards (Fidar), which found that 25.7 per cent of senior managers in Dax-listed companies were now women, and that women made up 39.7 per cent of Dax supervisory boards.
“It shows that gender diversity is not a fair weather topic but is gaining in importance in economically difficult times,” said Jens-Thomas Pietralla, head of Russell Reynolds’ European Board.
At 12 companies, a third or more of the executive board is female, said Russell Reynolds, and at two companies — Commerzbank and Siemens Healthineers — that rises to 50 per cent. Porsche SE is the only company with no women in top management roles.
Russell Reynolds said women were particularly well represented in energy, consumer goods, insurance and financial services companies. Their representation was particularly poor in the car industry.
This article has been corrected to say that there are now four female CEOs of Dax-listed companies, rather than three.
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