Russia Loses Lead in Female Representation among Senior Executives. Grant Thornton Research

According to the research annually conducted by Grant Thornton, one of the world's largest networks of independent accounting and consulting firms, Russia, which remained in the lead in the female representation among senior executives for several years, this year has been ranked third in the gender equality ranking.

Last year the share of women in senior management of Russian companies was 47%, while this year the figure amounts only to 41%. And our country is behind the Philippines (46%) and Indonesia (42%).

The average proportion of senior roles held by women in the world this year is only 24%. The countries where women remain under-represented in senior teams are India (19%), the Netherlands (18%), New Zealand (17%), Australia (15%) and Japan (5%).

Business leaders who took part in the poll named the most common barriers to gender equality, such as the complexity of translating good intentions into practice (22%), stereotypes about gender roles (21%), lack of evidence of positive impact on company performance (16%) and a business culture that is unsupportive of diversity (15%). It shall be noted that 37% of business leaders believe there are no barriers for women.

Women who managed to overcome all barriers are represented in various industries as follows: real estate – 18% of female senior executives, tourism and hospitality – 32%, IT, media and telecom – 23%, retail – 24%, production – 22%, transport – 30%, healthcare – 27%, financial services – 20%, agriculture – 24%, mining – 23%, electricity, gas and water supply – 26%, professional services – 22%, education and social sphere – 30% and oil&gas – 26%.

Follow the link to read the full research