More women on executive boards than ever before
Women are in the minority on the executive boards of listed companies but have long since ceased to be an exception. And their numbers are growing. There is also a positive trend with respect to pay.
Berlin (dpa) - Top female executives at Germany’s leading listed companies earned more in 2025 and have nearly caught up with their male colleagues. Female members of executive boards - excluding chief executive officers - of companies listed on the DAX, MDAX and SDAX earned on average 2.20 million euros last year. “That’s 2.4 percent more than a year earlier,” reports consultant firm EY in a study. Their male colleagues averaged earnings of 2.23 million euros, nearly two percent less than the year before.
EY also noted that there were “more women on executive boards than ever before” in 2025. According to the report, 101 women held executive board positions for the entire business year last year: 50 in the DAX, 30 in the MDAX and 21 in the SDAX. The figure a year earlier was 88, and just 33 in 2013. Thus at least one in four board members is a woman these days.
Meanwhile, Germany Research Minister Dorothee Bär paid tribute to female entrepreneurship at the presentation of the “she succeeds award” and called for more visibility of women as innovators. “Excellent women are vital for Germany as a centre of research and innovation,” Bär said at the event hosted by the Association of Women Entrepreneurs in Germany.
