Global backlash against gender equity is showing up in Australian data on women in corporate leadership, with progress in women reaching executive leadership reversing.
New figures released today show the proportion of women on ASX 200 executive leadership teams has dropped from 32 to 31 per cent, the first fall in a decade of analysis.
Meanwhile, across the broader ASX 300, 25 companies now have no women on their executive leadership teams, up from 17 last year.
Last year, I recall reporting on the 17 figure and urging readers to “let that sink in” for a moment. The fact we have seven more is even further reason to pause and consider just how the gender backlash is hitting corporate Australia and elsewhere.
CEO promotions are also declining, with women taking one in seven such appointments across the ASX 300, down from one in four in 2025. The decline follows a decade in which women’s share of ASX 200 executive leadership team roles rose from 21 to 31 per cent, and their share of CEO roles from five to 11 per cent. However, progress has slowed and even stalled in recent years, and 2026 marks the first year of decline.
That’s according to the tenth Chief Executive Women Senior Executive Census released today, with women leaders also reporting growing opposition to gender equity in their workplaces, according to a survey by CEW to coincide with the latest Census findings. Almost one in three senior women leaders (32 per cent) say they have observed greater opposition to gender equity than support over the past 12 months.
While some might see the figures as small and possibly just an anomaly, the reverse follows stalled progress. And it comes amid expectations that progress will simply continue.
The breadth of decline shows that the hard-won gains of the past can no longer be taken for granted, according to CEW President Helen Conway AO.
“Corporate Australia has to bring the same ambition and accountability to gender equity that it brings to every other measure of performance”, she said
The CEO of Chief Executive Women, Lisa Annese AM (pictured above), said the fall in progress reflects the same global pressure, amid pushback against gender equity.
The Census also finds women from culturally diverse backgrounds are further underrepresented, with 23.5 per cent of women in ASX 300 executive leadership teams from cultural origins other than Anglo-Celtic or North-West European, according to CEW’s first assessment of the likely cultural origins of women in leadership. That’s compared to 38.9 per cent of adult women in Australia. Just 0.7 per cent of women senior executives in the ASX 300 are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, despite this group making up 3.8 per cent of the country’s population.
As Professor Nareen Young, Director of the UTS Centre for Indigenous People and Work, said on the findings, “When you look at the corporate leadership of this country, Blak women are all but absent from it.”
The proportion of women CEOs on the ASX 300 shows slight progress, with 31 companies now led by women, four more than in 2025. Women hold 30 per cent of ASX 300 executive leadership roles.
Australian employers quickly followed the Trump-led lead last year by pulling back on diversity and inclusion efforts. An analysis of annual reports this time last year found that 54 of 81 had cut mentions of diversity, ESG and DEI, with some companies having up to 24 DEI mentions in their reports before Trump’s second term.
Now, the backlash is showing up in the figures: fewer women are being appointed CEO, more companies are running their business with no women in their executive teams, and the proportion of women in executive leadership is no longer improving; it’s going backwards.
Indeed, some of the women surveyed by CEW noted the impact. One said that, “Trump has legitimised the idea that treating women badly is ‘okay’. The manosphere impact is terrifying.” Another said that policies have been updated to “refer to merit rather than diversity and discussions appear to assume that diversity does not correlate with merit.”
From here, CEW is calling on Australian corporate leaders to act on five priorities, including setting and publishing a 40:40:20 target (at least 40 per cent women and 40 per cent men) across CEO pipelines, succession pools, and executive teams. Importantly, they’re calling on these targets to be linked to executive remuneration. They also need to establish gender-balanced CEO pipelines, create flexible, safe, and inclusive workforces, and broaden the definition of CEO readiness and the leadership pipeline for the role.
CEW is also calling on organisations to address the pushback against gender equity. Not just quietly and not just within their organisations, but publicly outside the organisation too.
Key findings from the 2026 CEW Census:
- 25 ASX 300 companies have no women on their executive team, up from 17 in 2025
- 30% of Executive Leadership Team (ELT) across the ASX 300 are held by women
- 31% of ELT roles across the ASX 200 are held by women, down from 32% in 2025.
- Just 13% of CEO appointment went to women in the past year, barely above their existing share of those roles
- 32% of CEW members surveyed observed greater opposition to gender equity over the past 12 months, just 14% observed greater support
- 11% of CEOs across the ASX 300 are women, up just one percentage point since 2025
- One in seven new CEO appointments were women, down from one in four in 2025
The ASX 300 companies with no women in their Executive Leadership Teams:
Capricorn Metals Ltd
Catalyst Metals Ltd
Tuas Ltd
Vault Minerals Ltd
Lovisa Holdings Ltd
Turaco Gold Ltd
Predictive Discovery Ltd
Vulcan Steel Ltd
AUB Group
Nick Scali Ltd
Dateline Resources Ltd
Monadelphous Group Ltd
Metals X Ltd
Objective Corp Ltd
BWP Property Group Ltd
Stanmore Resources Ltd
Meeka Metals Ltd
Minerals 260 Ltd
Pantoro Gold Ltd
Austal Ltd
Sunrise Energy Metals Ltd
Supply Network Ltd
Infratil Ltd
Black Cat Syndicate Ltd