Romina Elena Mendez Escobar

Posted on Mar 31

More women in Tech. Fewer women leading

#ai #womenintech #inclusion #career

Every March invites me to pause, and on a personal level, it’s a moment to acknowledge the progress made toward equality, but also to reflect honestly on the challenges that still remain.

In recent years, we have seen encouraging signs: more women are pursuing careers in technology, science, and data. At the same time, initiatives to promote diversity within organizations have grown, along with conversations around female leadership and inclusion programs across the sector.

However, when we look at who occupies decision-making roles in technology (who leads teams, defines strategy, or drives innovation) the reality still reflects an uneven path.

From my experience working in IT, one question keeps coming up: if more women are studying STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and developing technical skills, why is it still so difficult to see them in technical leadership roles?

With that question in mind, I reviewed several recent reports and what I found is that there is no single cause, but rather a combination of structural and cultural factors that reinforce one another.

Understanding them together is key to explaining why progress remains so slow.

A persistent gap: the numbers behind the reality

To frame the conversation, it is worth starting with a few recent data points:

〰️ (1) Globally, women represent around 50% of the working-age population, yet they hold only 40% of total employment and approximately 35.4% of management positions, according to the International Labour Organization [1].
〰️ (2) Within the technology sector, the situation is even more pronounced. In Europe, women account for fewer than one in five tech workers [6], and according to McKinsey’s analysis, their presence in core technical roles has not only failed to improve over time but has actually declined: from 22% in earlier reports to approximately 19% in more recent ones. This suggests that, rather than closing, the gap may in fact be widening [2].
〰️ (3) At the highest levels, the numbers are equally telling. In 2025, women lead just 11% of Fortune 500 companies, compared to 10.4% the previous year [3], a modest increase that, in perspective, highlights the slow pace of progress.
〰️ (4) According to the 2025 Women’s Power Gap report, of the 64 new CEOs appointed in the S&P 500 in 2024, only 11 were women (17% of the total), and none were founders of the companies they were set to lead [4].
〰️ (5) The gender pay gap adds another layer to this picture: in the European Union, women earn on average around 12% less than men [9].
〰️ (6) The 82% of the female leaders surveyed say they have had to change companies at least once in order to take the next step in their professional career [9].

These figures describe the outcome, but not the process. To understand why this situation persists, we need to look inside organizations and examine the mechanisms shaping women’s career progression.

The broken rung: when careers start at a disadvantage

One of the most useful concepts for explaining this gap is called Broken Rung. The image is precise: it is not about a glass ceiling preventing women from reaching the top, but rather a damaged step at the very beginning that makes it harder for many women to take their first step into leadership.

According to a McKinsey study conducted in the United States, for every 100 men promoted to their first management role, only around 80 women achieve the same advancement [2]. At first glance, this may seem like a small difference, but its consequences compound over time. If fewer women reach the first step of leadership, there will also be fewer candidates at the next level, and even fewer at the level above.

With each promotion, the starting pool shrinks, and female representation gradually diminishes as one moves up the hierarchy.

This cascading effect largely explains why executive levels in technology companies show such limited representation. The problem is not the final barrier before reaching roles such as CEO or CTO, it lies in that initial moment when decisions are made about who takes on early management and leadership responsibilities and who does not.

At this point, it is worth adding another insight highlighted by McKinsey: 49% of women in the European technology sector reported experiencing sexism or bias in the past year, and 82% said they feel the need to prove their competence more than their male peers in order to be recognized [2].

These are not just individual experiences; they are indicators of an environment where the standards of evaluation are not the same for everyone, and where promotion decisions may be influenced by different expectations based on gender.

Invisible work: tasks that consume time without building careers

Alongside the broken rung, there is a second mechanism that operates more quietly but just as effectively: non-promotable work. This refers to all the tasks that are necessary for the day-to-day functioning of organizations but are not recognized in performance evaluations nor contribute to career advancement.

The list is familiar to anyone who has worked in an organization: taking meeting notes, organizing team events, coordinating onboarding logistics for new hires, managing recognition initiatives or gifts, or participating in committees that have no direct impact on the business. These tasks are essential, yet they are not reflected in any performance metric and, when it comes to evaluating promotions, they simply do not count.

The issue is not only that these tasks go unrecognized, but also that they are not distributed equitably. According to an analysis published by The Guardian in 2022 [7], women tend to take on these responsibilities more frequently. This results in less time available for strategic projects and reduced visibility within the organization. In some cases, this difference can amount to nearly a month of work per year spent on tasks that do not contribute to professional growth, compared to their male counterparts.

Over time, this pattern not only limits individual development but also structurally reinforces the gap in access to leadership roles.

Learning to stay relevant: the challenge of continuous upskilling

In this context, one of the most important responses is reskilling: the ability to learn new skills and adapt to ongoing market transformations. Developing capabilities in areas such as AI, data, cloud, infrastructure, cloud computing, DevOps and security will be critical in the coming years for those who want to remain relevant and grow professionally.

However, technical training, while necessary, is not sufficient on its own. It is equally essential to develop a deep understanding of the industries where technology is applied: understanding the real challenges organizations face, identifying the most appropriate solutions for each context, and being able to design realistic implementation paths. In this sense, training in project management, agile methodologies, and research and development practices is not an optional complement, but a core component of the professional profile the market will demand.

As Meirav Oren, CEO and co-founder of Versatile, noted during the World Economic Forum:

This insight points to a well-documented phenomenon: many women tend to apply for new positions only when they feel they meet all the requirements, whereas men often apply when they meet only part of them. This is not a difference in capability, but rather a reflection of how the environment has shaped confidence and risk perception.

For this reason, fostering environments where women can take on challenges, learn through the process, and make their work visible is just as important as any technical training program.

Systemic barriers in transition: the added impact of AI

When viewed together, what emerges is not a list of isolated issues, but a system of barriers that reinforce one another. The broken rung reduces, from the outset, the number of women who enter leadership, while non-promotable work consumes the time and energy that could otherwise be invested in building visibility and career progression.

And to this already complex system, we must now add a new and accelerating force: artificial intelligence.

AI is redefining skills, roles, and organizational dynamics. As new opportunities emerge, others evolve or transform at an increasing pace.

However, this transformation also presents a specific challenge for women's participation in technology. In many teams, women have historically had stronger representation in areas such as design, user experience, and product management. According to McKinsey, women represent approximately 53% of design roles and 39% of product management positions [2].

These same areas are among those most affected by the adoption of AI-driven tools. In particular, early-career roles are already showing signs of decline, with a 3% decrease in design and a 2% decrease in product roles between 2024 and 2025 [2].

This does not mean these roles will disappear, but rather that they are evolving rapidly and demanding new technical and strategic capabilities. Entry-level profiles, in particular, face greater challenges, as they require structured support, continuous learning, and real opportunities to adapt.

In this context, the risk is not technological but structural: if women do not have equitable access to reskilling, upskilling, and leadership opportunities within these transformations, the gap may widen even further in the coming years.

None of these dynamics operate in isolation. Rather, it is their combination that explains why, despite the growing number of women entering the technology sector, representation in leadership roles remains so limited.

And precisely because the problem is systemic, the solutions must be as well.

Building the future of technology is also a matter of diversity

Technological progress opens up enormous opportunities for society, but it also raises a question we cannot ignore: who is designing the systems we will use in the future?

Algorithms, digital platforms, and artificial intelligence systems are not neutral. They are shaped by the decisions, experiences, and contexts of those who build them.

In software architecture, there is a principle known as Conway’s Law, which states that organizations design systems that mirror their communication structures. Applied to diversity, this means that if technology teams are not diverse — or if communication is hierarchical and limited — those same constraints may be reflected in the solutions we create.

This is not only a matter of equality, but also of innovation, social impact, and the quality of the technology we bring into the world. Diverse teams make better decisions, consider more perspectives, and ultimately build more robust solutions.

March 8 serves as a reminder that, although progress has been made, the path toward equitable participation in technology leadership is still ongoing. And this challenge does not belong to a single day or a single sector: it is part of an ongoing responsibility.

Promoting inclusion, supporting the professional development of women in technology, and creating real pathways to leadership are not just goals. They are ways of building teams where different perspectives can coexist and enrich the decisions we shape — now more than ever — in technology.

Because the future of technology will not only be defined by what we build... but by who is given the opportunity to build it.