Madame CFO,
Breaking Barriers

By Arianne Cohen

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During a recent talent search for a chief financial officer, something unusual happened: The final candidate slate was three females and one male. The recruiter was elated at the “organic” outcome, in a search in which the employer had not made any requests regarding gender. “That was just the talent pool,” says the recruiter.

Something important is happening at the topmost levels of the corporate hierarchy: One of the C-suite’s last remaining male bastions, the position of CFO, is finally opening up,  after years of effort by advocates. In the first half of 2024, almost a third of new CFOs appointed to S&P 500 companies were women. As recently as 2013, only 10 percent of these CFOs were female. At tech firms, which aren’t exactly known for appointing women to the upper echelons of management, females represented 38 percent of CFOs in the first half of 2024. “This is a clear sign that newer, more adaptable industries are creating environments where women can thrive,” says executive-search expert Beau Lambert, senior client partner in the Financial Officer practice at Korn Ferry.

To be sure, CFO seats in the S&P 500 are still an estimated 40 years away from gender parity; of sitting CFOs, just 18.5 percent are women. But the shift is notable, and experts attribute it in part to the increasing number of remote options, which enable women with family commitments to consider nonlocal jobs without uprooting their families. Hybrid arrangements also allow partners to take on more caretaking responsibilities, freeing up women to assume roles, like CFO, that would have been impossible for them a decade ago.

Experts also point to the increasing dominance of women in accounting programs, where they make up roughly 60 percent of students (approximately two in five CFOs are CPAs), as well as a broader shift in board composition, which is now one-third female at S&P 500 companies. “There’s a clear link,” says Lambert, between the rise of women on boards and increasing CFO diversity.

Interestingly, rising gender parity for CFOs has not necessarily made filling the position any easier. Recruiters privately say that female candidates remain highly sensitive to being “the woman” in the C-suite, and bristle at being recruited simply because of their gender. The CFO role requires particularly deep experience, which companies have invested in providing over the last 10 to 15 years. Organizations can’t expect an employee to acquire this level of expertise within just a year or two. “For that reason, it’s a longer path to parity,” says Arlene Kobayashi, senior client partner in the Global Financial Officers practice at Korn Ferry. In the current job market, she says, the majority of candidates with the necessary training and skills are men, and companies still seek the most qualified candidate for the role.

When female CFOs are hired, the effects ripple across the organization, say business psychology experts. Employees in the organization perceive a female executive in an important top role as empowering, above and beyond CFO-track staffers, says Cathleen Swody, managing partner at Foster Talent Consulting. Executive diversity helps employees quietly recognize that they might someday occupy a top seat themselves. “It helps people be braver, and opens up opportunities in people’s minds.”

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