{"id":7819,"date":"2026-06-03T11:05:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=7819"},"modified":"2026-06-03T11:05:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:05:16","slug":"women-run-a-record-11-2-of-fortune-500-companies-in-2026-but-the-gain-came-in-a-year-of-a-few-exits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=7819","title":{"rendered":"Women run a record 11.2% of Fortune 500 companies in 2026\u2014but the gain came in a year of a few exits"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Even in a turbulent year at the top, a record 56 women lead Fortune 500 companies in 2026, 11.2% of the newest ranking of America\u2019s largest businesses by revenue. That\u2019s the highest share in the list\u2019s 72-year history and the fourth consecutive year the figure has cleared double digits.<\/p>\n

Still, several Fortune 500 CEOs including Oracle\u2019s Safra Catz, Fannie Mae\u2019s Priscilla Almodovar, and Hershey\u2019s Michele Buck exited their corner offices in a span of weeks during the fall. Almodovar\u2019s departure left the Fortune 500 without a Latina CEO for the first time since she took the job in 2022. <\/p>\n

Then, SAIC\u2019s Toni Townes-Whitley stepped down in October, briefly narrowing the ranks of Black women running Fortune 500 companies to just one (TIAA\u2019s Thasunda Brown Duckett) until the September 2025 addition of DTE Energy CEO Joi Harris. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Foot Locker\u2019s Mary Dillon\u00a0is no longer ranked among Fortune 500 chiefs after the retailer was acquired by Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods in 2025.<\/p>\n

Even with all of those exits, the count of female Fortune 500 chiefs kept moving upward because of a steady flow of internal promotions and outside hires. Newmont, Textron, Murphy USA, and DTE Energy all promoted women as CEOs this past year, and more high-profile transitions are set for the rest of 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dow announced in April COO Karen S. Carter will take over as CEO on July 1, making her the first Black woman to lead a major U.S. chemical company\u2014and bringing the number of Black women running Fortune 500 businesses back up to three. Lululemon named Nike veteran Heidi O\u2019Neill its permanent CEO, with a September start date.<\/p>\n

The Fortune 500 ranks the largest U.S. companies by revenue. This year, Amazon snagged the No. 1 spot on the ranking, capping Walmart\u2019s 13-year run. Although there\u2019s a record number of women leading Fortune 500 companies, we don\u2019t get a woman CEO until Elevance Health, ranked No. 18, which is helmed by Gail Boudreaux. She\u2019s led the health insurer (previously known as Anthem) since 2017. Anthem is followed at No. 19 by Sarah London\u2019s Centene, and at No. 23 by Mary Barra\u2019s General Motors.<\/p>\n

The internal-promotion pipeline keeps delivering<\/p>\n

Glass ceilings continue to break, in part, due to improved internal succession planning.<\/p>\n

In the past decade, the majority of women who have risen to a Fortune 500 corner office have done so through internal promotion rather than outside hiring, according to Fortune data. Ulta Beauty\u2019s Kecia Steelman, who joined the company in 2014 and worked her way up through operations roles before being named CEO in January 2025, told Fortune\u2018s Leadership Next podcast last fall she\u2019s grateful for the long runway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing really grounded and humble with my beginnings, I wouldn\u2019t change that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Despite all the churn, Fortune 500 women CEOs are making gains, albeit somewhat slowly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The share of Fortune 500 companies run by women has trended upward since 2020, when just 7.4% of the list was female-led. But growth was flat at 10.4% in both 2023 and 2024 before ticking up in 2025 and again this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s much to celebrate in terms of women reaching the corner office, it could still take decades at the current pace to reach gender parity at the top of the world\u2019s largest companies.<\/p>\n

#Women #run #record #Fortune #companies #2026but #gain #year #exits<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even in a turbulent year at the top, a record 56 women lead Fortune 500…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[13770,1386,4838,133,2175,1449,3282,847,65,167,85],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}