Having one woman leading an organization as a member of the C-suite or on the board can significantly improve the diversity of the entire company, CNBC reported July 28.
CNBC cited data analytics company Altrata's latest diversity report, which collected information from BoardEx, to analyze over 1,500 publicly traded companies and their relationship between female leadership and diversity.
It found that having a woman on the board or in the C-suite was correlated with increasing the number of other women who could then ascend up the ranks, stating that having a female CEO is often an indication that women are supported in such positions.
"If not enough women are gaining the corporate experience necessary to qualify for the most powerful board roles, such as CEO, this may slow the progress towards achieving equity at the highest levels of corporate power," said Maya Imberg and Maeen Shaban, the lead authors of the report.