Women CEOs more likely to be fired than male counterparts

Women CEOs are more likely to be fired than men mainly because they are more likely to be external hires, according to a report by the organisation Strategy&.

Women CEOs are more likely to be fired than men mainly because they are more likely to be external hires, according to a report by the organisation Strategy&.

For its 14th annual report on CEO successions and success among the world’s top 2,500 public companies, Strategy&, a global team of practical strategists, has focused particularly on women CEOs over the last 10 years.

The report finds women CEOs are still rare, making up just 3 percent of 2013's incoming class, but it saysthey are becoming more prevalent. The organisation says it expects that trend to accelerate and that by 2040 women will make up about a third of new CEO appointments. In terms of professional background, the report found fewer differences between female and male CEOs than anticipated, but it says two particularly notable ones stood out: that women are more often hired from outside their company and that they are more often forced out of office.

They repeated their analyses of incoming and outgoing CEOs at the largest 2,500 public companies in the world. In 2013, turnover was largely business as usual, they say: 14.4 percent of CEOs left office, a small decrease from 2012’s 15.0 percent, and planned changes remained high, at just over 70 percent.

The writers say: "We take this as a sign that more boards are planning ahead for the CEOs they’ll need — which is crucial since the median CEO tenure is just five years. Most of the new leaders coming into office were familiar to the companies that hired them, a trend we discussed at length in last year’s study and that we saw reinforced in 2013."

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