Despite their extraordinary intellectual legacy, women remain underrepresented in senior business leadership. Globally, they still hold a minority of executive and board positions in large companies. However, research consistently shows that organizations with more diverse leadership teams tend to perform better across several critical dimensions for companies facing structural transformation.
On International Women’s Day, much of the public conversation understandably focuses on equality, representation and opportunity. These are fundamental issues. However, for today’s business leaders, there is also a deeper strategic question worth reflecting on: who is shaping the leadership paradigms required for companies to navigate an era defined by climate risk, systemic disruption and rising societal expectations?
Over the past decade, sustainability has moved from the margins of corporate discourse to the core of business strategy. Regulatory frameworks are tightening, investors are demanding greater transparency, and supply chains are under increasing pressure to decarbonize. Sustainability is no longer a reputational exercise. It has become central to risk management, innovation, competitiveness and long-term resilience.
In this context, leadership becomes decisive. Increasingly, evidence suggests that diverse leadership, including greater participation of women at the highest levels of decision making, is not only a matter of fairness but also a strategic advantage for organizations navigating complexity.
Many of the ideas underpinning modern sustainability thinking were shaped by women who fundamentally changed how societies understand the relationship between economic progress, environmental limits and social well-being.
In 1962, Rachel Carson, through her landmark book Silent Spring, exposed the environmental consequences of industrial chemicals and helped catalyze the modern environmental movement. Decades later, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who chaired the United Nations commission responsible for Our Common Future, helped define the most widely cited definition of sustainable development: meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. More recently, figures such as Christiana Figueres, who played a key role in delivering the Paris Agreement, and economists such as Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics, have helped reshape economic debate around planetary boundaries, climate responsibility and new models of prosperity. Sustainability has therefore emerged not only as a technical agenda but as a profound shift in economic thinking and governance.
Despite this intellectual legacy, women remain underrepresented in senior business leadership. Globally, they still occupy a minority of executive and board roles in large companies. However, research consistently shows that organizations with more diverse leadership teams tend to perform better across several critical dimensions for companies undergoing structural transformation.
A global study by McKinsey & Company found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams are 25% more likely to outperform financially than those in the bottom quartile. Other studies indicate that diverse leadership teams tend to make more robust strategic decisions, achieve higher levels of innovation and demonstrate stronger risk management capabilities. These attributes are particularly relevant as companies face climate transition risks, technological disruption and evolving stakeholder expectations.
Integrating sustainability into corporate strategy is one of the most complex transformations companies face today. It requires rethinking capital allocation, redesigning products and services, reshaping supply chains and adapting governance structures, all while remaining competitive in dynamic global markets. These challenges demand leadership capable of navigating complex systems, balancing short term pressures with long term value creation and engaging multiple stakeholders simultaneously. Leadership models characterized by collaboration, systems thinking and a long-term orientation are becoming increasingly valuable as sustainability becomes embedded in strategic decision making.
The transition to a more sustainable economy will define the coming decades of business transformation. Ensuring that leadership teams reflect greater diversity, including stronger representation of women in executive roles and on boards, is therefore not only a matter of representation but also of organizational capability.
International Women’s Day offers an opportunity to recognize progress and to reflect on the future of leadership in business. Ultimately, the transition to sustainability will not be driven only by frameworks, metrics or regulations, but by leaders capable of imagining and building business models that create value within the ecological and social limits of our time.
Mafalda Sarmento, Sustainability Officer at Católica-Lisbon SBE