Neue-Zürcher Zeitung – Female Managers Rarely Make It to the Top in Switzerland

The proportion of women at the top of Swiss companies is well below the required levels. According to Egon Zehnder’s 2018 Global Board Diversity Tracker, which studied gender representation in 44 countries across 1,610 companies (37 of them in Switzerland), 22.3% of board members in Switzerland are female. Only 2.7% of Swiss CEOs are women, compared to 4.2% in Western Europe and 3.7% globally. 

The representation of women in top positions varies between countries. In the past decade, the proportion of women has increased most in countries that have introduced female quotas. Companies in Belgium, Italy and France have outperformed the government quota, while female board members in most of the countries surveyed are behind the politically fixed figures. According to Simone Stebler, an Egon Zehnder consultant based in Zurich, voluntary economic initiatives are more effective than government-fixed quotas. 

Full Story: Managerinnen schaffen es in der Schweiz selten ganz an die Spitze (Translated from Swedish)