Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Why women’s rise to the top of business is stalling

For all the talk of setbacks for women in the workplace this year, it can be hard to pin down an exact cause. There are just so many factors at play—from politics in Washington, to the economy, to women simply choosing to remove themselves from workplaces that don’t work for them.

Luckily, my colleague Claire Zillman spent the past few weeks clarifying exactly what is going on. Her new piece, just published today, is the most comprehensive analysis of this moment we’re in for women that I’ve read. “Women’s steady climb to CEO jobs and board seats is stalling. A perfect storm of politics, economic uncertainty, and changing career norms is the reason why,” she explains.

She uncovers reasons women’s climb to the top is slowing beyond the ones that dominate the headlines. Take something as simple as management training: companies have dissembled their formalized management training programs and cut spending on these programs. It’s become “survival of the fittest” for any rising exec who wants to make it to the top, and that’s of course often doubly true for women. CEO readiness—for anyone—is at an all-time low, Korn Ferry’s Jane Stevenson told Claire. When women were just starting to cross thresholds like running 10% of the Fortune 500, these setbacks have real consequences.

I highly recommend you dive into Claire’s new piece (just some light pre-holiday reading!). We have one more edition of the newsletter tomorrow before we break for the holidays—I’ll be back with your 2026 predictions and some of my favorite moments of 2025.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

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