My grandmother wasn’t allowed to attend art school due to her gender, and this was in Sweden, a country known for being wildly progressive, even by yesterday’s standards.

Walking topless on the beach? No problem. Painting in a classroom? Don’t even think about it, young lady.

Now, with the spotlight finally aimed at the alarming lack of women in executive positions, let’s take a closer look at some of the stats, and see how far we’ve (hopefully) come.

In the 2022 FTSE Board report, it was revealed that ten companies in the FTSE 100 have 30%, or less, female representation. The number of women in non executive director roles in the FTSE 100 has increased by 15% over the past year which, although being quite a big leap, is dwarfed by the discerning statistic noting that women in executive directorships increased only 3% to 36% in the past year.

So with everything else seemingly moving so quickly in terms of progress, why has the uprise of women in positions of higher power remained at a molasses like speed?

Marne Levine, chief business officer of Meta Platforms said, in an interview with Fortune Magazine: “We don’t have enough women in the C sweep level roles…but tech companies are growing and evolving so quickly, there’s no real path for preparation for these roles. For example, when I was in business school, I couldn’t have prepared specifically for the role of COO. I couldn’t even imagine being at Instagram because Instagram didn’t exist at that point.” Marne continues with saying that women should thereby view preparing for executive roles with an athlete mindset. “Any good athlete should engage in cross training.” 

Carla Harris – author, singer, and Vice Chairman at Morgan Stanley, who was the first black person, man or woman, to join the bank’s management committee – said, when asked about her success, “No matter who you are, there’s always going to be detractors…my mother always said to me, ‘the world is not fair, so get an A+.’ And that was her way of preparing me for the discrimination that might await me as I moved into the world.” She adds that women in her position from the older generation have failed in telling the younger demographic that they can, in fact, have it all, and that she needs to take more responsibility in showing how it can be done, so that young women today aren’t stuck with the same questions she was asking several decades ago.   

In an open letter to her 25-year-old self, Carla Harris continued by saying: “Girl, own your power. Don’t make anybody feel like you can’t have an impact in the world just because they said so…be willing to take risks, be fearless, because fear has no place in your success equation.”

When asked what the biggest challenge facing women in leadership positions today, Sheila Hooda, CEO & President of Alpha Advisory Partners, said, “It’s hard, because there are no role models. There is no network. They are learning as they go.” Sheila also added a harsh truth in saying that when women are at the pinnacle of their business careers, they are also at the right time to start a family. If they choose to take time off, when they return to work, their skills have quickly become obsolete and everyone has now eclipsed them in the ranks.

Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin resources, says that one big advantage to working from home has been that men can no longer command attention during board meetings, and has levelled the playing field a bit mor, and has allowed women to take on more responsibility.

'Women Count' is an annual study of women executives, and they reported in 2020 that profit margins are 10 times greater in firms where at least 1/3 of the executive committee are women, compared to those with lower female representation.

So, if one looks at the cold hard facts, it should be obvious that more women equal better results.

Let's hope that 2023 get's us closer to breaking through that glass ceiling.