Grant Thornton: female CEOs fall in Spain

The proportion of women holding chief executive positions in Spanish companies has fallen to 18.5%, a ten-point drop over the past three years, according to a White Paper published by Grant Thornton and Mujeres&Cía. The report argues that the decline is not due to a shortage of female talent but to unequal access to the visibility, sponsorship and operational experience that lead to top executive roles.

The document draws on contributions from more than thirty chairpersons, CEOs, board members and senior executives from different sectors, gathered during the Women in Business | CEO Edition event held in Madrid. The session compared leadership data with the direct experience of those involved in talent, promotion and succession decisions within their organisations.

Women in management, but fewer at the top

According to the latest edition of Women in Business, a study Grant Thornton has run for 22 years, Spain counts 37.3% of women in management positions, above both the European Union average and the global figure. However, that presence narrows sharply at the most senior levels: the share of female CEOs stands at 18.5%, down ten points versus three years ago, with similar declines recorded among chairwomen and partners.

Ramón Galcerán, chairman of Grant Thornton, said: “Spain has demonstrated it is possible to advance the presence of women in management positions, but the real challenge remains at senior leadership level. If we believe diversity produces better companies, it must also be present where the most strategic decisions are made.”

Career paths built years before the top job

The White Paper stresses that access to a CEO position is not decided only when a vacancy opens, but is built over years through decisions about who leads a business unit, manages a profit-and-loss account, runs a transformation project, takes on international responsibilities or presents to the board. Although many women have reached senior positions in corporate functions, they continue to access roles with direct responsibility over operations, revenue, margins, markets or growth less frequently, and these remain determining credentials in many succession processes.

The report recommends reviewing who receives transformational projects, manages significant budgets, leads business units or gains exposure to decision-making bodies, and treating succession as a continuous process by periodically reviewing pipelines for critical roles, identifying experience gaps and assigning opportunities in advance to close them.

Isabel Perea, managing partner for Audit and head of Grant Thornton’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, said: “Female talent exists, is prepared and adds value to organisations. The question is whether companies are creating the opportunities needed for that talent to gain visibility, business experience and sufficient exposure in the processes where future leadership is decided.”

Sponsorship versus mentoring

The study draws a distinction between mentoring, which guides and reinforces skills, and sponsorship, which involves someone with decision-making power using their internal capital to open concrete opportunities, such as proposing a professional for a critical project, defending a promotion, or backing a candidacy in a succession process. The analysis points to a recurring pattern in which many women are over-mentored but under-sponsored, receiving training and advice but lacking leaders willing to advocate for them, place them in relevant projects or back their candidacy when decisions are made. This responsibility falls particularly on CEOs, chairpersons, executive committees and boards of directors, who identify talent, assign projects and build leadership pipelines.

The “broken rung” at early promotions

The report identifies a first bottleneck, described as a “broken rung,” that occurs earlier in careers, when decisions are made on who begins leading teams, enters high-potential circuits or receives the first responsibilities that shape a professional trajectory. Parenthood, care responsibilities and shared domestic duties continue to influence these decisions despite progress on work-life balance, coexisting with cultural interpretations that can still associate constant availability with greater commitment.

Aurora Sanz, managing partner for Tax & Legal at Grant Thornton, said: “Shared responsibility cannot be understood as an isolated work-life balance measure but as a necessary condition for men and women to develop their careers on equal terms. If care responsibilities continue to fall unevenly, so will the resignations, interruptions and invisible penalties in promotion processes.” The document recommends intervening at specific career moments, including first promotions, returns from care-related leave, annual evaluations, assignment of high-impact projects and mobility decisions, and integrating shared responsibility into talent strategy.

Formal structure versus real power

The White Paper notes that organisations have a formal structure, represented by the organisation chart, and a less visible architecture through which information, trust, reputation and opportunities are distributed. Biases can operate through affinities, trust networks or unstructured decisions, favouring the repetition of profiles that have historically held positions of power. The report proposes making this architecture visible by reviewing how projects are assigned, who receives opportunities recurrently, which profiles are excluded from exposure and whether men and women receive the same room to take risks and learn from mistakes. It also distinguishes between representation and influence, noting that regulation is helping increase women’s presence on boards and governance bodies, but this evolution does not by itself guarantee greater female participation in executive leadership.

A roadmap from presence to influence

The document sets out a roadmap for CEOs, executive committees and boards of directors, with priorities including diagnosing how power is distributed within the organisation, identifying a female pipeline with executive potential, reviewing succession processes, institutionalising measurable sponsorship and acting on culture. The diagnosis should cover not only how many women are part of leadership but what functions they perform, what budgets they manage, what teams they lead, what critical projects they are assigned and what exposure they receive before decision-making bodies. The report also proposes measuring promotion rates at early responsibility levels, career progression after care-related leave, and internal perceptions of equal opportunity, visibility and fairness.

In the picture: Elena Mayoral, Lydia Seller, Merce Marino, Matilde García Duarte, Javier Sierra, Asunción Soriano, Marian Isach, Itzal Arbide, Susana Rodríguez, Carolina Martínez-Caro, Cristina Villanova,  Sonia Pascual, Esther del Río, David García Núñez, Gloria Serra, Almudena Martorell, Luisa Alli, Pilar Damborenea, Meriyeny del Carmen Batista, Ángel Piña, Victoria Plantalamor, Inés Juste, Domingo Mirón, Carmen Fernández de Alarcón, David Soto, Carlos Lemus, Mancha, Henry Fürniss, Celia Pérez-Beato, Patricia Benito, Ana Campón Alonso, José Luis Nevado, Lola Vilas, Country Manager de Uber, Mercedes Wullich, Ramón Galcerán, Isabel Perea, Aurora Sanz