Gender diversity on corporate boards has made measurable progress over the past decade. But the trajectory is uneven, and the headline numbers conceal significant variation by company size, industry, and role. We analyzed 30,198 directors across 3,782 public companies using their most recent SEC proxy filings — gender is identified for 28,471 of them (94%). Here's what the data shows.
A note on scope. This dataset reaches much further into the small- and mid-cap universe than the 772-company sample this article previously covered. The headline percentage is lower here (27.7% vs. 32.5% previously) mainly because smaller companies have historically added women to their boards more slowly than large-caps — a real finding, not a data-quality artifact, since gender coverage is consistently high (94%+) across company sizes.
The Headline: 27.7% of Directors Are Women
Women hold 7,879 of the 28,471 board seats with identified gender in our dataset — 27.7%. Men hold the remaining 72.3%.
That's a meaningful gap from the ~32-33% figures typically reported for the S&P 500 and other large-cap indices, and it's consistent with a broader pattern: board diversity initiatives, Nasdaq's listing rule, and institutional investor pressure have concentrated most visibly on the largest, most closely watched companies. Small- and mid-cap boards, which make up the bulk of this dataset, have moved more slowly.
The Distribution: Most Companies Cluster Below 30%
The aggregate 27.7% masks wide variation across individual companies. Restricting to the 2,952 boards in our dataset where every director's gender is identified (so a board isn't miscounted as "all-male" due to missing data):
| Female Director % | Companies | % of Total |
|---|---|---|
| 0% (no women) | 280 | 9.5% |
| 1–19% | 492 | 16.7% |
| 20–29% | 905 | 30.7% |
| 30–39% | 741 | 25.1% |
| 40–49% | 322 | 10.9% |
| 50%+ | 211 | 7.1% |
The largest single bucket — 30.7% of companies — sits in the 20–29% female range, below the Nasdaq board diversity rule's minimum threshold of two diverse directors on a typical board. 280 companies (9.5%) still field all-male boards, mostly smaller companies; 211 (7.1%) have reached 50% or more female representation.
The All-Male Boards
280 companies in our dataset field all-male boards (among boards where we can confirm every director's gender). The largest among them:
| Ticker | Company | Board Size |
|---|---|---|
| MCBS | MetroCity Bankshares | 12 |
| AI | C3.ai | 11 |
| UP | Wheels Up Experience | 11 |
| CCNE | CNB Financial Corp | 10 |
| HCWC | Healthy Choice Wellness Corp | 10 |
| ELWT | Elauwit Connection | 10 |
| VLGEA | Village Super Market | 9 |
| BRBS | Blue Ridge Bankshares | 9 |
Most all-male boards in our dataset are smaller companies below the market-cap thresholds where proxy-advisor and institutional-investor diversity voting policies bite hardest.
The Leaders: Companies With Majority-Female Boards
84 companies have more women than men on their board. Among the highest by percentage:
| Ticker | Company | Board Size | Women | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TR | Tootsie Roll Industries | 6 | 5 | 83% |
| BMBL | Bumble | 9 | 7 | 78% |
| GO | Grocery Outlet Holding | 4 | 3 | 75% |
| LWAY | Lifeway Foods | 7 | 5 | 71% |
| IMMX | Immix Biopharma | 7 | 5 | 71% |
| PH | Parker-Hannifin | 9 | 6 | 67% |
| EXPO | Exponent | 6 | 4 | 67% |
| NTGR | NETGEAR | 6 | 4 | 67% |
Parker-Hannifin stands out as a majority-female board in a traditionally male-dominated industry (industrial manufacturing) — not the kind of company most observers would expect to lead on board diversity.
Industry Breakdown
The gender gap varies by industry. Among industries with at least 500 directors in our dataset:
| Industry | Female % | Directors |
|---|---|---|
| Electric, Gas, and Sanitary Services | 33.1% | 897 |
| Food and Kindred Products | 31.8% | 515 |
| Holding and Other Investment Offices | 30.7% | 1,405 |
| Insurance Carriers | 30.4% | 856 |
| Security and Commodity Brokers | 30.4% | 526 |
| Industrial and Commercial Machinery | 28.8% | 1,040 |
| Measuring, Medical, and Optical Instruments | 27.7% | 1,669 |
| Business Services | 27.5% | 3,036 |
| Electronic and Other Electrical Equipment | 26.9% | 1,332 |
| Chemicals and Allied Products | 26.1% | 4,230 |
| Depository Institutions | 25.4% | 2,830 |
| Oil and Gas Extraction | 21.7% | 626 |
| Non-Depository Credit Institutions | 21.0% | 639 |
Coal mining (18.0% female, a smaller sample at 50 directors) is the lowest of any industry group we track. Extractive and traditional financial-services industries generally lag; utilities and consumer-facing industries lead.
The Tenure Gap: Women Are Newer to Their Boards
Female directors average 6.1 years of tenure. Male directors average 8.6 years — a 2.5-year gap.
The gap matters in two ways:
Leadership roles are lagging. Among 2,953 board chairs identifiable with gender in our dataset, only 8.7% are women — well below the 27.7% seat share. Among 1,035 lead independent directors, 18.4% are women — better, but still below parity with seat representation.
Independence rates are high. Female directors are classified as independent at a 92.0% rate, compared to 73.0% for male directors. This reflects how most women reached the boardroom: through an external search process seeking independent perspective, rather than the insider paths (founder status, executive promotion) that produce non-independent directors.
The Appointment Trend
The share of new director appointments going to women, by the year each director joined their current board:
| Year Joined | Total Directors | Female | % Female |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 901 | 208 | 23.1% |
| 2016 | 961 | 227 | 23.6% |
| 2017 | 1,132 | 290 | 25.6% |
| 2018 | 1,301 | 442 | 34.0% |
| 2019 | 1,491 | 594 | 39.8% |
| 2020 | 1,802 | 672 | 37.3% |
| 2021 | 2,393 | 974 | 40.7% |
| 2022 | 1,883 | 723 | 38.4% |
| 2023 | 1,985 | 684 | 34.5% |
| 2024 | 2,266 | 700 | 30.9% |
| 2025 | 2,604 | 620 | 23.8% |
| 2026* | 868 | 197 | 22.7% |
*2026 is incomplete; many proxy statements covering spring 2026 elections have not yet been filed or extracted.
The share of new appointments going to women rose sharply from 2015 to a peak around 2021 (40.7%), then declined for four straight years through 2025. This is a different — and later — peak than the 2019 peak we reported previously, reflecting the broader small- and mid-cap universe now in the dataset: those companies' diversity pushes appear to have both started later and cooled off more recently than the large-cap sample this article originally covered.
What This Means for Candidates
If you are a female executive targeting a board seat, the data points to specific strategies:
Small- and mid-cap boards are the larger opportunity, and the larger gap. With 280 all-male boards and a 20-29% female range as the most common bucket, there is more room — and more investor pressure yet to come — outside the large-cap names most diversity coverage focuses on.
Industry focus. Coal mining, non-depository credit institutions, and oil and gas sit well below 30% female and face increasing pressure from institutional investors. A qualified female candidate in these sectors targets a compressed pool of competitors relative to the pressure these boards face.
Tenure creates leadership openings. The tenure gap means that women with 10+ years of board experience are a small and valuable cohort. If you have already served on one board, your positioning for committee leadership — and for a second seat — is stronger than the aggregate numbers suggest.
The declining appointment trend is a headwind, not a wall. Four years of declining female appointment share means less momentum than a few years ago, but 211 companies in this dataset already have majority-female boards — proof that boards can and do get there.
The picture across the full public-company universe is more uneven than the large-cap headlines suggest. Progress at the biggest, most-watched companies has been real; progress at the thousands of smaller companies that make up most of the public market has been slower and, on the appointment-trend evidence, has recently cooled.
Board composition data for all 3,782 companies in this analysis is available in the company directory.