Women CEOs Outnumber Johns

In 2015, an article in the New York Times highlighted the distinct absence of women at the helm of major U.S. companies, using a methodology that was, to say the least, out of the ordinary: at the time, there were fewer women CEOs of major companies in the country than men with the first name John.

In fact, there were four times as many men with the first names John, Robert, William and James as there were women.

Good news? Not anymore.

As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, according to the U.S. financial group Bloomberg, which analyzed the CEOs of the S&P 500 companies, women outnumbered all male first names for the first time in 2017, but were tied with CEOs named James two years on. It was only last year, when ten new women joined the ranks of S&P 500 CEOs, that they widened the gap.

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A small victory, then, for the place of women among top executives, but one that needs to be put into perspective, since there are still only 41 women in this position.