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For 21 years, the Women in Business report has tracked the proportion of women in senior roles in the mid-market. Progress has been made but with gender equity over 25 years away, that isn’t soon enough.

Businesses have started to put guidelines and incentives in place, focused on driving employees back to the office.

The most successful strategy to achieve parity of women in senior management is one which stands alone, independent of an ESG strategy.

To push towards parity of senior management roles held by women, who leads within an organisation is vital.

We saw an increase in the percentage of senior management roles held by women, on a global level, but there are some significant regional and country variations.

Without a greater focus on the issue, women’s parity in senior management won’t be reached until 2053 at the current rate.

2024 marks the 20th year of Women in business where we monitor and measure the proportion of women occupying senior management roles around the world.

The latest International Business Report (IBR) data shows that mid-market businesses have high expectations for global trade.

Mid-market business leaders plan to increase investment over the next 12 months, specifically in technology, research and development and staff.

As mid-markets concerns about a possible global recession have receded, leaders’ expectations for increases in their profits are at an all-time high.

Our Grant Thornton global transparency report provides in-depth insight into the approach we take at Grant Thornton to ensure we continually evolve our processes and capabilities, improving our quality so each of these aspects not only reflects, but also anticipates, the changing commercial and regulatory markets in which we operate.

Progress on the overall number of women in senior leadership continues, but it’s concerningly slow.

Although positive, progress is slow. This year, women in mid-market companies hold 32.4% of senior management positions, up 0.5pp from last year’s 31.9%.

Grant Thornton research reveals big increases in the percentage of women occupying chief executive officer (CEO), managing director (MD), and chief information officer (CIO) positions.

Five recommendations to push for parity, and accelerate progress.

In businesses adopting a hybrid model, with a defined mix of onsite and remote working, there are higher levels of women in senior management.