Women dominate C-suite in 2019
About 20 leading women leaders in the tech sector have featured in the Forbes Power Women list in 2019. And, it is not just the CEOs who are being featured but also others in the C-suite.
The top three women on the list are the CEOs of their companies and have helped their businesses to scale new heights. For example, IBM’s CEO Ginni Rometty successfully closed the $34 Bn acquisition of Red Hat in July 2019, which had been in the works since October 2018. YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki (No. 12) had a tough year as the online streaming platform struggled to keep extremist content off its platform and faced backlash from the audience. Oracle’s CEO Safra Catz (No. 14) lost her co-CEO Mark Hurd after he died in October, leaving her as the only CEO of the tech giant.
Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg, who has also been featured on the list, has been defending the company’s stance on political advertising and continues promoting free speech. Apart from the ones occupying the top role, chief financial officers are also in the list driving impact in the business world. CFO Ruth Porat, CFO, Alphabet, has been a leader in some of Google's biggest investments, for example, a commitment to spend $13 Bn on data centers around the country in the US. Moreover, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood (No. 26), helped push Microsoft to become a trillion-dollar company while competing with Apple to take on a larger market share.
A new entrant into the list, Hooi Ling Tan (No. 63), co-founder and COO of Grab, has been in charge of expanding new markets while the company bought Uber’s Southeast Asia operations which was a deal worth billions.
According to the Korn Ferry Institute, the percentage of women CEOs has remained the same between 2018 and 2019. However, the number of women in other C-suite roles has grown from 23 percent to 25 percent.
While there is no denying that there is a need to be more number of women CEOs in global companies, as we wrap up 2019 it is important to recognize those who are contributing across various roles in C-Suite and making a difference in the boardroom.