As we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Rosenzweig Report on Women in Leadership, the conversation around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has become increasingly polarized.

Corporate leaders once generally embraced DEI as a fundamental principle for building high-performing organizations. Today, however, these initiatives are under attack. Critics seize on missteps in execution...

This year’s Rosenzweig Report – our 18th – marks advancement for women in corporate Canada. For the first time, women hold more than 10 percent of the country’s top corporate positions. While this number may still seem disturbingly low – which it is – it nonetheless represents a milestone.

There is some good news: the number of women in corporate leadership roles has approximately doubled over the past 17 years. But unfortunately we began from a very low base. Today the total number of women leaders is still under 10 per cent. So, yes, the numbers are higher, but they do not even begin to approach equality.

By any measure, the past year has been a challenging one, given the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic disruption. This has been especially true for women generally and for women identifying as Black, Indigenous, or as People of Colour (BIPOC) in particular. In Canada, women exited the workforce in far higher numbers than their male counterparts, according to a recent RBC research paper...

In 2020, based on our latest survey of top corporate jobs in Canada, women continue to face serious obstacles to advancement in business. Indeed, we found a year-over-year decline in the number of named female executives at Canada’s 100 largest public companies, dropping from 9.6% to 7.99%.

In 2019, based on our latest survey of top corporate jobs in Canada, we must report that women continue to be held back. Yes, there has been some overall progress, but it has been incremental at best.

Our latest report indicates there are clearly still significant challenges in terms of achieving more acceptable levels of female participation in the C-Suite. But we are cautiously optimistic that real progress is within reach, if the right strategies are employed and if people of good will – men as well as women – strive to make it happen.

Forging gender equity has been far more elusive than many think, despite male leaders – in business and politics – who are working diligently on the side of gender equity. This is not simply a women’s issue; it’s everybody’s issue. Everyone has a stake.

For 11 years, we’ve been tracking the number of women in leadership roles at Canada’s 100 largest publicly-traded corporations and equality remains a pipedream. Where Trudeau’s cabinet is 50-50 men and women, the top executives of Canada’s 100 largest publicly-traded companies are 92 percent male and a paltry 8 percent female, a slight drop this year over last year’s results.

At no time during the past decade have we been more hopeful, more excited, more energized about the fact that real and lasting change is coming when it comes to gender equality in business. 

This is the 9th Annual Rosenzweig Report on Women at the Top Levels of Corporate Canada. Since we started, the percentage of female NEOs (Named Executive Officers) who lead the 100 biggest public companies in Canada has moved from 4.6 percent to approximately 8 percent. The flip side is that we started from an appallingly low number so the increase, in real terms, leaves us far short of our ultimate goal. Indeed, the needle did not move forward this year over last year.

The Annual Rosenzweig Report looks at the 100 largest publicly-traded companies in Canada, based on revenue, and examines how many of the top-paid leadership roles are held by women. Under law, public companies in Canada are required to disclose the compensation of their CEO, CFO and the next three highest-paid employees. These employees are referred to as Named Executive Officers (“NEOs”) in the reports filed with the Ontario Securities Commission. This is the eighth year Rosenzweig & Co. has compiled this report, demonstrating our ongoing commitment to diversity and to tracking Canada’s progress on this important topic.

This year, in the Seventh Annual Rosenzweig Report, our findings clearly indicate that progress has stalled, with the same number of women in senior executive-level positions as last year.

In the past six years the numbers have risen modestly, however remain well below a reasonable initial target of 20%. This target represents one woman at the most senior level in every Top 100 company and is more consistent with the make-up of the talent pool of corporate officers one level below.

Since we began tracking the advancement of women in the corner offices of Canada’s largest publicly traded companies, we have found both progress and disappointment along the way. This year – the Fifth Annual Rosenzweig Report – our findings lack both sentiments: progress is stalled, but we are not overly disappointed because we believe the economic turmoil, or global recession, has played a significant role.

The number of women executives at the highest levels of corporate Canada increased from one year ago with a year-over-year increase of 24 per cent. This year we determined that 7.2% of the top paid executive positions were held by women compared to 5.8% in our 2008 report.

The number of women executives at the highest levels of corporate Canada dropped from one year ago with a year-over-year decrease of 16 per cent. There are only 31 women in the top offices in Canada’s largest public companies, compared to 37 a year earlier.

Women executives in Canada at the highest levels made notable strides last year with a year-over-year increase of 50% in the number of female executive officers at the largest public companies in the country. That’s the good news. On the flip side, a lot more must be done for women to achieve equality at the highest levels of corporate Canada.

The aforementioned statistics were extrapolated from a detailed survey of the top 100 publicly traded Canadian companies, ranked by revenue, and listedin various Canadian media sources.There were a number of steps that led to the final analysis.