Figure 1 illustrates the distribution of CEO compensation to company C-Suite compensation, which follows a relatively normal distribution.
Why Women leadership isn’t just a boardroom issue anymore
Through data and analytics, investors now have an opportunity to direct greater capital to businesses that make a positive impact.
Published May 23, 2017
Studies show that having gender diversity in leadership positions correlates with increased profit and returns. Companies with just 30% women in the C-suite demonstrate a 15% increase in profitability compared to those with none. Likewise, companies with boards made up of at least 40% women demonstrate higher return on equity, higher return on capital and lower stock price volatility, especially compared to exclusively male boards.
However, today’s companies are still largely male-dominated.
“[E]vidence suggests that many women remain unable to achieve their goals… If these obstacles persist, we will squander the potential of many of our citizens and incur a substantial loss to the productive capacity of our economy.”
- Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve Chair
We All Can Succeed: 125 Years of Women’s Participation in the Economy
For instance, take the S&P1500 Index -- comprising the 1,500 largest companies that account for 90% of U.S. stock market capitalization:
13% of S&P1500 companies have 0 female board members
1 out of 5.5 board members are women
79 out of 1496 CEOs are women (5.27%)
How can we create change?
The first step is to understand the scope of the problem. Censible set out to create a way of evaluating companies on leadership gender diversity. To find the companies and funds with the strongest female leadership, we use a database of over:
- 50,000 global companies
- 12,000 ETFs
- 25,000 mutual funds
- corporate executive and board data covering over 40,000 companies
Censible believes such a comprehensive analysis provides not only more accurate ratings but also global perspective across all companies, both big and small. Armed with this data, investors can make more informed decisions with their money. Because let’s face it: when you buy a product or invest in a company, you are supporting that company and its practices.
Explore the rankings
Best Companies
Find out which companies rank the highest for female leadership.
Best Large Companies
See the best performing large companies for female leadership.
Worst Companies
These companies don’t measure up for female leadership.
Best & Worst Funds
Looking for a fund to invest in? These are the best and worst performers for women in leadership.
Largest Funds
Find ratings for some of the most popular funds - such as the S&P 500, Russell 1000 and more.
Socially Responsible Investing Funds
See how other socially responsible investing (SRI) and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) funds stack up.
Censible’s Scoring Methodology
Best Performing Companies
Censible uses data on company executives and board membership to rate companies on their inclusion of women in leadership positions. These are the best performing companies in the world at incorporating gender diversity in leadership positions.
Company
Censible
Score
Score
CEO
Female Board %
Country
Censible uses data on company executives and board membership to rate companies on their inclusion of women in leadership positions. Learn more about our scoring methodology.
Best Performing Large Companies
When it comes to ESG standards many hold the world’s largest companies to a greater level of accountability due to the resources these companies as well as the affect these companies generally have on employment and economic output. These are the best performing companies with a greater than $10 billion market capitalization.
Company
Censible
Score
Score
CEO
Female Board %
Country
Censible uses data on company executives and board membership to rate companies on their inclusion of women in leadership positions. Learn more about our scoring methodology.
Worst Performing Companies
5,840 companies score zero by failing to have one female board member or executive. With so many public companies failing to incorporate any gender diversity in its C-Suite or board, we've decided to focus on the 15 largest companies by revenue derive in the United States. Please contact us to receive the entire list.
Company
Censible
Score
Score
CEO
Female Board %
Country
Censible uses data on company executives and board membership to rate companies on their inclusion of women in leadership positions. Learn more about our scoring methodology.
Best & Worst Performing Funds
Most of the top funds are made up of European companies. This is likely partially a cultural phenomenon, but many European countries also have quotas for female board membership.
Censible uses data on company executives and board membership to rate companies on their inclusion of women in leadership positions. Learn more about our scoring methodology.
Largest Funds
These funds control enormous market share. Chances are you’re invested in an index fund, and if not, they still provide a good picture of the market that may be more representative than a simple average.
AUM
Fund
Censible
Score
Score
Female
CEOs
CEOs
Female Board %
Boards with
over 30% women
over 30% women
All Male Boards
PE Ratio
$682.67B
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund
3.30
160 of 3107
22%
4245 of 28139 members
4245 of 28139 members
236 of 3104
770 of 3104
40.76
$410.11B
Vanguard 500 Index Fund
3.42
27 of 496
23%
1191 of 5538 members
1191 of 5538 members
72 of 494
7 of 494
41.03
$342.81B
Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund
2.77
219 of 4820
20%
9003 of 60916 members
9003 of 60916 members
809 of 5844
1733 of 5844
25.50
$274.93B
SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust
3.42
27 of 496
23%
1191 of 5538 members
1191 of 5538 members
72 of 494
7 of 494
41.02
$227.53B
Vanguard Institutional Index Fund
3.42
27 of 495
23%
1189 of 5529 members
1189 of 5529 members
72 of 493
7 of 493
41.03
Censible uses data on company executives and board membership to rate companies on their inclusion of women in leadership positions. Learn more about our scoring methodology.
Censible’s Scoring Methodology
For our Women in Leadership rankings, we used a database of over 49,000 global companies, 12,000 ETFs and 25,000 mutual funds for our securities universe alongside corporate executive and board data covering over 40,000 companies.
Company Ratings
For each company, we first compile an executive score and a corporate board score, and then combine them into an overall raw Women in Leadership score. The raw score is then normalized across the company’s peers and by geographic region to determine a Censible rating.
Executive Scores
The executive score is calculated based on the percentage of women in a company’s C-suite and the importance of each C-Suite position. The C-suite executive roles included are:
- CEO
- COO
- CFO
- CTO (Chief Technology or Chief Medical Officer)
- President
- Chairman
- General Counsel
- Human Resource Officer
- Treasurer
The executive roles are weighted by relative importance; this weight is determined by finding the median ratio of each position’s compensation to total executive compensation across companies with greater than $1 billion market capitalization. Censible uses compensation ratios instead of absolute compensation amounts because this measure naturally adjusts for compensation currency and company size.
Figure 2 illustrates the distribution for CEO total compensation, which follows a skewed, heavy-tail distribution.
Censible also uses a system of equations to adjust position compensation weights when executives have multiple roles. In the event a company does not have a particular position or Censible is unable to identify an executive’s gender, Censible adjusts the score to avoid unfairly penalizing or promoting the company.
Corporate Board Score
The corporate board score is primarily determined by the percentage of women on the company’s board of directors. Companies close to all-male boards are given a penalty on their score and companies with over 50% women on their boards are given increasingly less benefit as board percentage approaches 70%.
Raw scores are normalized across company peers. Rather than defining peers according to strict industry and sector classifications, we analyze similarities in micro-revenue data to generate peer cliques to normalize across. This helps us avoid pitfalls associated with defining a conglomerate business by a single, narrow classification.
Censible also normalizes company scores based on country or geographic region. Regulatory requirements and cultural differences regarding gender roles can affect the inclusion of women in leadership roles. For instance, the CAC 40 in France is requiring large companies to appoint 40% of their board seats to women by 2018. Companies in countries with fewer than 75 companies are normalized against the companies in its geographic developed or emerging market region.
Company Rankings and Lists
Some companies are excluded from Censible’s published Women in Leadership rankings lists. To be included on a list, the company must meet the following requirements:
- Trade on a listed exchange
- Have at least four board seats and three known executives.
Companies failing to meet these requirements may still be used in ETF or mutual fund calculations. Censible aggregates companies for country-specific rankings by corporate domicile. For instance, Accenture PLC, which is domiciled in Ireland, would not appear on a U.S. aggregated list.
Fund Ratings
Censible builds its fund ratings by first evaluating the constituent companies found in investment funds and ETFs. Fund holdings level data is provided by Factset’s Ownership and Symbology datafeed. Censible breaks down each ETF and mutual fund into individual components at the positional level and then rolls them up into the ultimate parent company. For example, Vanguard's Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) holds approximately ten other investment funds which our proprietary analyzer programmatically disaggregates into roughly 3,500 individual companies in order to calculate an overall ESG score for the fund. Displayed metrics pertaining to a fund such as the number of companies in the fund or the number of female CEOs utilize Censible’s proprietary analyzer.
Fund Rankings and Lists
Some funds are excluded from Censible’s published Women in Leadership rankings based on our selection criteria. To be included, funds must meet the following requirements:
- Trade on a U.S. listed exchange
- Contain at least 25 company positions based on Censible’s disaggregation algorithm
- Do not have more than 10% exposure to a single company on a disaggregated basis
- The fund’s three largest company exposures collectively remain under 20%
- Legally filed or reported its holdings through Factset within the last year of the current date
- 70% of the fund is comprised of publicly listed companies
- Censible has rated at least 85% of the maximum potential fund exposure
- Funds have at least $75 million in assets under management. This requirement is removed for responsible investing fund lists
Press Kit
Press kit available upon request. Direct inquiries to Philip Martin.
Socially Responsible Funds
There are many mutual funds and ETFs that focus on companies with high environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) ratings or purport to invest sustainably or responsibly. But one fund can’t encompass every issue, and gender diversity is often not represented well in ESG and corporate responsibility statistics.
Most of these funds perform similarly to the biggest index funds for female leadership diversity. Considering the often-high fees that are charged by these kinds of funds, they may not be a worthwhile investment if gender equality is your goal.
Socially Responsible Funds
Score
CEOs
over 30% women
3211 of 15342 members
138 of 498 members
155 of 617 members
686 of 2762 members
587 of 2601 members
322 of 1438 members
281 of 1201 members
845 of 3745 members
101 of 434 members
2012 of 7701 members
365 of 1486 members
599 of 2701 members
751 of 3356 members
254 of 1115 members
359 of 1503 members
1367 of 7207 members
101 of 453 members
528 of 2430 members
148 of 680 members
92 of 395 members
101 of 468 members
86 of 394 members
152 of 738 members
91 of 350 members
74 of 338 members
179 of 822 members
292 of 1231 members
90 of 460 members
107 of 553 members
162 of 777 members
661 of 2847 members
1858 of 9312 members
113 of 470 members
2342 of 11306 members
120 of 534 members
126 of 537 members
1018 of 4711 members
182 of 784 members
119 of 535 members
81 of 442 members
118 of 724 members
4560 of 29391 members
113 of 592 members
359 of 1778 members
72 of 441 members
152 of 817 members
149 of 837 members
80 of 453 members
95 of 488 members
92 of 485 members
76 of 401 members
168 of 910 members
995 of 6209 members
600 of 3681 members
76 of 447 members
94 of 676 members
74 of 512 members
1345 of 8278 members
89 of 649 members
56 of 457 members
1540 of 11169 members
35 of 267 members
389 of 3441 members
53 of 511 members
270 of 2561 members
Censible uses data on company executives and board membership to rate companies on their inclusion of women in leadership positions. Learn more about our scoring methodology.