Positions held by women in senior management positions

The indicator measures the share of female board members and executives in the largest publicly listed companies. Publicly listed means that the shares of the company are traded on the stock exchange. The ‘largest’ companies are taken to be the members (max. 50) of the primary blue-chip index, which is an index maintained by the stock exchange and covers the largest companies by market capitalisation and/or market trades. Only companies which are registered in the country concerned are counted. Board members cover all members of the highest decision-making body in each company (i.e. chairperson, non-executive directors, senior executives and employee representatives, where present). Executives refer to senior executives in the two highest decision-making bodies of the largest (max. 50) nationally registered companies listed on the national stock exchange. The two highest decision-making bodies are usually referred to as the supervisory board and the management board (in case of a two-tier governance system) and the board of directors and executive/management committee (in a unitary system). The data comes from the Gender Statistics Database of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE).