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Visualizing the Rise of Women on Boards of Directors Worldwide

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The Rise of Women on Boards

The Rise of Women on Boards of Directors Worldwide

Women’s representation in the boardroom is a mixed bag. The number of women on boards is rising across the globe—but the rate of increase has slowed for three of the past four years.

Based on MSCI research of All Country World Index (ACWI) constituent companies, the graphic above reveals a 10-year trend of women’s representation on corporate boards, and projects three future scenarios on the way to parity.

ESG Goals: The Path to Parity

The ESG ecosystem considers 30% representation to be a critical milestone on the road to reaching gender parity on corporate boards of directors.

Following a small uptick in 2019—and two years of slowed growth from 2017 to 2018—the rise of women on boards slowed again in 2020, gaining 0.6 percentage points (p.p.).

Based on different forward-looking scenarios, here’s how long it could take to reach equal representation:

Progressive scenarioBusiness-as-usual scenarioDeceleration scenario
Years to reach 30%
Women on Boards (WoB)
6 years9 years16 years
Year we may reach >50% WoB203920452070

Source: MSCI ESG Research LLC as of Oct. 30, 2020.

On the whole, parity on corporate boards could be reached as early as 2039 or as late as 2070.

Women’s Representation: State of the Unions

MSCI research reveals trends that highlight significant traction. In 2020, fewer women became directors, but all-male boards continued to decline worldwide to 17% in 2020 (a 2 p.p. drop) among the ACWI contingent.

This trend is partially driven by emerging markets, where all-male boards dropped to 31%, from over 34% initially. Hong Kong is one of the few countries that actually experienced an increase of 5 p.p. in all-male boards. In contrast, Saudi Arabia’s share reduced by 8 p.p. to 86% in 2020.

Country% Companies with 3+ WoBCountry% Companies with no WoB
🇳🇴 Norway100%🇶🇦 Qatar100%
🇮🇹 Italy100%🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia86%
🇧🇪 Belgium100%🇦🇷 Argentina67%
🇵🇹 Portugal100%🇭🇺 Hungary67%
🇫🇷 France100%🇰🇷 South Korea65%
🇸🇪 Sweden91%🇦🇪 UAE63%
🇫🇮 Finland91%🇨🇱 Chile44%
🇪🇸 Spain90%🇲🇽 Mexico38%
🇬🇧 UK85%🇭🇰 Hong Kong37%
🇦🇹 Austria83%🇮🇩 Indonesia36%

Source: MSCI ESG Research LLC as of Oct. 30, 2020.

Europe continues to lead the world in gender representation on boards. All top 10 countries with three or more women directors are found in the region, with countries like Norway, Italy, and Belgium being the closest to reaching parity.

Across sectors, utilities experienced the largest increase in companies with three or more women on boards, with a 9% jump between 2019-2020.

The Other Glass Ceiling: The C-Suite

The number of women CEOs remains low across all regions, but CFO roles show more promise.

MSCI World, 2017MSCI World, 2020MSCI EM, 2017MSCI EM, 2020
Women in CEO roles4.7%4.9%3.3%4.8%
Women in CFO roles9.4%12.1%9.8%18.7%

Source: MSCI ESG Research LLC as of Oct. 30, 2020.

This global rise is also largely thanks to emerging markets. Since 2017, emerging market companies have exhibited higher percentages of CFOs than companies in developed markets, and the difference is widening.

The Glass Ceiling Isn’t Unbreakable

As MSCI reports, the progress towards parity in boardrooms does not necessarily represent the workplace. Emerging research suggests that women have been more negatively impacted by the pandemic’s economic fallout—potentially undoing several years’ worth of improvements.

However, developing nations still show promising results in key indicators of gender diversity, with further opportunity to grow corporate bottom lines.

As more post-pandemic recovery data becomes available amidst vaccine rollouts, we’ll gain a better sense of whether we’re still on track to follow these long-term trends.

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Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?

We visualize the recent performance of the Magnificent Seven stocks, uncovering a clear divergence between the group’s top and bottom names.

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Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In this graphic, we visualize the year-to-date (YTD) performance of the “Magnificent Seven”, a leading group of U.S. tech stocks that gained prominence in 2023 as the replacement of FAANG stocks.

All figures are as of March 12, 2024, and are listed in the table below.

RankCompanyYTD Change (%)
1Nvidia90.8
2Meta44.3
3Amazon16.9
4Microsoft12
5Google0.2
6Apple-6.7
7Tesla-28.5

From these numbers, we can see a clear divergence in performance across the group.

Nvidia and Meta Lead

Nvidia is the main hero of this show, setting new all-time highs seemingly every week. The chipmaker is currently the world’s third most valuable company, with a valuation of around $2.2 trillion. This puts it very close to Apple, which is currently valued at $2.7 trillion.

The second best performer of the Magnificent Seven has been Meta, which recently re-entered the trillion dollar club after falling out of favor in 2022. The company saw a massive one-day gain of $197 billion on Feb 2, 2024.

Apple and Tesla in the Red

Tesla has lost over a quarter of its value YTD as EV hype continues to fizzle out. Other pure play EV stocks like Rivian and Lucid are also down significantly in 2024.

Meanwhile, Apple shares have struggled due to weakening demand for its products in China, as well as the company’s lack of progress in the artificial intelligence (AI) space.

Investors may have also been disappointed to hear that Apple’s electric car project, which started a decade ago, has been scrapped.

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