This International Women's Day, let's stop hoarding power

International Women's Day brings an annual surge of celebration. Profiles are published, panels are convened, and promises are made. Progress at the highest levels of business, however, remains slow and uneven. Women still hold fewer than one in three senior vice president roles and fewer than one in five C-suite positions across U.S. companies, with representation for women of color significantly lower. In the subset of the largest American corporations, the number of female chief executive officers hovers just above 6%. These figures illustrate that even as awareness of gender inequity grows, the share of women in positions of authority and strategic decision-making remains stubbornly low. 

Real change requires a different approach, one that moves beyond recognition and toward a meaningful redistribution of responsibility. 

Give to gain means you stop hoarding power. It means giving people real responsibility and expecting them to rise to it. I've witnessed women without traditional career paths grow into senior leaders because someone trusted them early. They were expected to deliver under pressure, and they did. When you give opportunities, you gain performance. When you give ownership, you gain momentum.

That same mindset must apply at the highest levels. Only a small fraction of private equity-backed CEOs are women. That will not change through visibility alone. It changes when women are trusted with authority that directly shapes revenue, growth, and long-term value.

In an AI-driven economy, this becomes even more urgent. As companies redesign workflows, operating models, and decision-making around AI, the leaders who are given the mandate to shape that transition will define the next generation of enterprise value. If women are not entrusted with those mandates now, AI will modernize the org chart without changing who holds power.

International Women's Day should push leaders to ask a harder question than how many women are in the room. They should be asking who controls budget, strategy, hiring, operating model redesign, and expansion plans. Influence without authority rarely changes results, and titles without decision rights do not build enterprise value.

Who gets the mandate?

I was handed a failing business at twenty-six – no active clients, no predictable path forward, and no room for hand-holding. It was not a development assignment – it was a real mandate with real consequences for the company.  That's what real power transfer looks like.

Responsibility at that level accelerates growth in ways incremental exposure never achieves. When revenue and delivery rest on your shoulders, judgment sharpens quickly. You learn to make decisions without complete information and to accept accountability for the outcome. Leadership develops through that process of ownership.

Across many organizations, women are more frequently placed in roles that maintain existing systems rather than reshape them. They are tasked with stabilizing performance instead of driving aggressive expansion. Over time, this pattern shapes résumés. When senior and c-suite roles become available, boards search for candidates who've carried growth targets and delivered measurable results under pressure. If women haven't been granted those opportunities earlier in their careers, their experience appears narrower through no fault of their own.

This dynamic often becomes visible in private equity-backed companies. These organizations are charged with scaling quickly and delivering measurable returns. The chief executive is expected to move decisively, manage volatility, and execute against ambitious plans. Yet only a small fraction of those roles are held by women. The disparity reflects where trust is placed when scale is at stake.

International Women's Day should encourage leaders to examine how responsibility is assigned within their own organizations. The individuals who are given the chance to own growth, navigate uncertainty, lead transformation,and be measured against outcomes are the ones who build the track records that later define eligibility for the top role.

Opportunity shouldn't be geographic

My conviction around power didn't begin in a boardroom. It began much earlier, observing how geography shapes access to opportunity. Talent is evenly distributed across communities, while access to meaningful responsibility is not. Many capable people grow up assuming leadership belongs elsewhere simply because they do not see a path from where they stand.

Throughout my career, I've seen individuals from small and mid-sized cities with unconventional backgrounds step into complex engagements and perform at the highest level once given the chance. They didn't lack ability – only exposure and sponsorship. The same dynamic affects women pursuing executive roles. Potential exists widely, while authority remains concentrated. When leadership pipelines rely on narrow networks and familiar trajectories, the same profiles continue to circulate.

Ultimately, we must stop hoarding power. Hand over the mandate. Back women to lead at scale – including the AI transformation reshaping every industry – and judge them by outcomes. That's how the numbers will change.