Germany has seen a record increase in the number of women holding leadership roles in major companies, though full gender equality remains a distant goal.
According to the initiative “Women on Supervisory Boards” (FidAR), women now occupy 37.5 percent of supervisory and executive board positions—up from just 19.9 percent a decade ago.
“With the introduction of the gender quota ten years ago, a decisive breakthrough was achieved for equal participation in leadership positions in the economy,” said FidAR chairwoman Anja Seng. She emphasized that before the law came into effect, progress had been minimal. Now, there are gains—but the pace remains slow.
A 2023 study illustrated the ongoing imbalance: there were nine male executives named Christian at Germany’s largest firms, while just seven women held executive roles overall. Though this marks an improvement from 2021, when 13 men named Christian held such roles, similar patterns persist. In family-run companies, the most frequent name among top executives is Stefan—men with that name outnumber all female executives combined.
Germany currently enforces two gender quota laws for most publicly listed firms. One requires that at least 30 percent of supervisory board seats go to women. The other mandates that executive boards with more than three members must include at least one woman. Companies must also set goals to boost female representation in other leadership roles. So far, 61 private firms are subject to these obligations.
Anja Seng has advocated for expanding these quotas to cover all publicly listed companies or those with more than 500 employees.
