IWD: 150% increase in the number of Female CEOS in Europe since 2014

Only 8% of CEOs in Europe are women, but this is up from 3.2 % in 2014, finds newly published research from Vlerick Business School. 

Whilst the number of women on company boards has doubled, with 40% of boards being made up of women directors in 2023, compared to just 22% in 2014. 

Conducted by Xavier Baeten, Professor in Reward and Governance, and senior researcher Marthe Van Hove, the annual CEO Remuneration study analyses the CEO remuneration and governance in the STOXX Europe 600, a stock index of the 600 largest listed companies across 17 European countries.  

With the latest available data for 2023 and the annual study beginning in 2014, the researchers were able to compare trends in CEO and board composition and remuneration over the past decade. 

The researchers also tracked data on CEO remuneration over the 10-year period, finding there has been  no significant increase in total CEO remuneration in the last 10 years. For this analysis, the researchers removed general price increases and calculated median CEO remuneration in real terms, considering inflation rates in each of the countries. 

This controlled approach highlights that while individual companies may experience variations in compensation, the overall trend in total remuneration has remained relatively stable over the past decade.  

More specifically, median total CEO remuneration in Stoxx 600 evolved from €2.881.581 in 2014, to €3.809.077 in 2023. In real terms however, median total CEO remuneration was €3.078.744 in 2023. The regression analysis demonstrates that when controlling for firm size and performance, there has been no significant overall increase. 

The researchers also found that while 16% of companies in the STOXX 600 included non-financial performance indicators in their long-term incentive plans (such as emissions, employee engagement, diversity, customer metrics, etc.) in 2014, this has since increased to 64% in 2023, demonstrating a growing focus on incorporating broader performance and responsible business practices into executive remuneration. 

For bonuses, this went from 71% (2014) to 90% (2023). Focusing on a key societal (and business) challenge, while in 2014 no more than 5% of STOXX Europe 600 firms included environmental KPIs in their bonus schemes, this has grown to 43% in 2023. 

“As we continue to examine the landscape of executive remuneration in Europe, it’s clear that progress, whilst slow, has been made in increasing gender diversity among top leadership” says Professor Baeten. 

“Over the past decade, while there has been no significant overall increase in CEO remuneration, the inclusion of non-financial performance indicators, such as ESG criteria and diversity metrics, has steadily risen. This shift reflects a growing complexity of compensation structures in the last 10 years, aligning executive compensation with broader societal and environmental goals.” 

Partnered with Deloitte, the Executive Remuneration Centre at Vlerick Business School, where Professor Xavier Baeten and Marthe Van Hove are both based, produced this annual survey to analyse the development in executive compensation. 

/END.  


To speak with Professor Xavier Baeten or for more information on this research, please contact Alexandre Lopez at BlueSky Education at alex@bluesky-pr.com or call +44 (0)1582 797959.