Women hold almost one in four management positions in listed Spanish companies

The female presence in management positions is still a pending task for Spanish companies. Although the percentage has grown slightly in recent years, companies are still far from achieving parity in their positions of power. In fact, according to the latest annual report from the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), corresponding to the closing figures for 2024, women occupied almost one in four positions in the senior management of Spanish listed companies, only 1.76% more than in 2023, when the female presence in these workplaces reached 23.07%. 

The CNMV considers as senior management those positions that report directly to the board or the company's chief executive, and the analysis has been carried out based on information extracted from the companies' annual corporate governance reports. Thus, it has been determined that only 27 listed companies have 40% or more female presence in positions of responsibility. In contrast, in companies listed on the Ibex-35, the percentage of women in senior management rises slightly to 26.31%.

Although the supervisory commission positively values the continued growth of female presence in senior management, it highlights in its latest report that there is still "a long way to go" to achieve parity in positions of responsibility, and considers it "strategic" for companies to strive to incorporate more women into the management team.

In fact, the Capital Companies Act stipulates that, as of June 30, 2026, companies listed on the Ibex-35 will have to have at least 40% women on their boards of directors, and the rest of the companies listed on the stock exchange must do so one year later, on June 30, 2027. In this regard, by the end of 2024, only 55 of the 86 listed companies had achieved this parity objective set by law.

The CNMV report highlights that to achieve the parity set by law, 41 new female directors would have to be appointed in these 31 companies that still do not reach the established percentage.  Ibex-35 companies, the first to implement this regulation, are close to this objective, as 24 of the 35 companies have already achieved this percentage. 

On the other hand, the analysis also points out that the categories of directors where the female presence increases the most is in the independent groups of companies, while the percentage of female executive directors still remains very low, and has even slightly decreased in recent years, standing at 8.55%.