Women Rising Leadership Brief – The Quiet Return

A year ago, investing in women's leadership was something companies quietly stepped back from. This year, the data suggests they're quietly stepping back in.

That's not a coincidence.

Between 2024 and 2025, DEI became a phrase many organisations avoided saying out loud, let alone funding. Programs weren't always cancelled outright. Many were quietly deferred, scaled back or absorbed into broader leadership initiatives. It didn't, however, change the underlying challenge. Women didn't stop questioning whether leadership was worth the personal cost, and the representation gap didn't close itself while organisations stopped talking about it.

But the numbers this year tell a different story. Organisations are investing again, not because the conversation has become easier, but because the business case for developing women leaders never actually went away.

The correction

Companies with gender-balanced leadership continue to report stronger business performance. Twenty-two percent now directly link improved financial performance to their gender equality strategies, while organisations running meaningful leadership development programs average 35% women in senior leadership compared with just 25% in organisations with weak or inconsistent investment. Investors are paying attention too, with more than one-third of U.S. companies reporting that shareholders have requested evidence of gender balance commitments at the executive level.

In Australia, there are encouraging signs of progress. Women's workforce participation reached a record 63.1% in 2025, women now hold 33.8% of leadership roles, and the number of women chairing ASX-listed boards continues to grow. But look closer and the correction is still shallow: women CEOs and senior executives have stalled at around 25%.

The risk of standing still

Here's where the risk becomes clear. In the U.S., women are leaving the workforce at a record pace — over 455,000 since the start of 2025, more than 300,000 this year alone, and most of it not layoffs but women choosing to leave rather than keep bending around jobs that weren't built for their lives.

Across Australia, only 1 in 4 organisations report gender-balanced leadership, and 35% of women now say they are no longer interested in leadership roles after weighing up the personal cost against the perceived reward. The attrition risk is particularly acute during mid-career and in technical roles, where women leave at significantly higher rates than men. The pattern is equally clear when it comes to flexibility. Organisations offering fully flexible work average 36% women in senior leadership, compared with 29% in predominantly office-based models.

The greatest risk isn't simply that organisations fail to develop more women leaders. It's that they lose them before they ever reach the executive pipeline.

None of this shows up overnight. Succession pipelines take years to build, which means the gap opening now is the one organisations will be explaining in three years' time.

Leadership capability compounds over time. It cannot be accelerated simply because an organisation decides next year that it needs more women leaders. The organisations making the strongest progress understand this. They continue investing through changing business cycles because they know leadership capability, succession planning and culture are long-term strategic assets, not short-term initiatives.

Why we built these programs

Women Rising develops the women already inside your organisation into the leaders they're ready to become. Male Allies helps build the leadership culture around them, creating environments where talented women are recognised, supported and able to thrive. Together, they strengthen leadership capability, succession planning and culture, helping organisations build stronger leadership pipelines over the long term.

Four weeks to go

Our next Women Rising and Male Allies cohorts begin on 31 August, and many organisations are now finalising participant nominations for the remainder of the year.

If your organisation is planning to invest in leadership this year, now is the time to secure your places.

The organisations with the strongest leadership teams three and five years from now won't be the ones that waited for the perfect time. They'll be the ones that understood the work of building leaders never really stopped.