Women Still Hold Only 11% of Fortune 500 CEO Roles. Here’s Why

Fifty five women now lead Fortune 500 companies. That is 11%, which is a record high and nearly triple what it was a decade ago.

At the current rate of change, however, it will take nearly 50 years for women to reach equality in the CEO seat. Catalyst, the workplace gender equity organization, described this slow rate as “glacially slow.”

The issue raises a question every woman should be sitting with right now: What do you do when the organization is moving too slowly for the urgency you feel? As a founder in my second act, I often look to strong women leaders who are paving the way. Melinda French Gates is one of them.

Melinda French Gates had everything. She left anyway.

For 24 years, French Gates co-chaired the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic organizations in history, responsible for nearly $78 billion in grant payments. By any measure, she was operating at the highest level of global influence. She left and walked into her own.

Under the terms of her departure, she left with $12.5 billion for her own philanthropy. She committed $1 billion of it through 2026 specifically to advance women’s power, including $150 million to dismantle barriers women face in the workplace.

“Women, especially mothers of young children, are leaving the workforce at an alarming rate, driven out by inflexible policies, rising childcare costs, bias, and harassment,” Gates said in an interview with Pivotal Venturesan organization she founded to advance social progress for women. “When we remove barriers for women, we unlock potential across the entire economy.”

The pattern I keep seeing in women leaders

In my research on high-achieving women, I keep seeing the same pattern that French Gates navigated. There is a role that is prestigious, meaningful, even world-changing, but one that no longer gives you full control of your own agenda.