Hetty Pye
Appearances
Redefiners
Paws, Purpose & Profit: A Conversation with Pets at Home CEO Lyssa McGowan
The way we talk about women CEOs matters more than you might think. Women accounted for just 11% of CEO appointments in 2024. And we also know that substantively fewer women leaders globally say they aspire to become a CEO to men. So what's behind this? One key reason is the higher level of scrutiny and unconscious bias that women face in society and the media.
Redefiners
Paws, Purpose & Profit: A Conversation with Pets at Home CEO Lyssa McGowan
To explore this further, we analyzed over 20,000 news articles covering nearly 750 CEOs across major indices, which revealed a number of challenges in how the media portrays women leaders. Two I'll highlight here are, one, women CEO departures receive nearly twice the media coverage of their male counterparts and are described in much more critical terms.
Redefiners
Paws, Purpose & Profit: A Conversation with Pets at Home CEO Lyssa McGowan
Two, women CEOs are damned if they do and damned if they don't. They were being described as being both too ambitious and not ambitious enough in media coverage. We have created RRA Artemis to seek to change the conversation around women CEOs and accelerate progress towards having more women CEOs. Why is this particularly important, especially right now?
Redefiners
Paws, Purpose & Profit: A Conversation with Pets at Home CEO Lyssa McGowan
Well, the world is getting ever more complicated, yet we don't have the quality choice needed to lead. To ensure we do have the very best leaders in place, we need to enhance leadership optionality. which includes broadening our selection of the 50% of the population, women, who are currently significantly underutilized at the CEO level. And this is what Artemis is all about.
Redefiners
Paws, Purpose & Profit: A Conversation with Pets at Home CEO Lyssa McGowan
To learn more about how we can change the conversation around women CEOs and accelerate progress towards a future with more of them, you can find our full report in the show notes or by visiting russellreynolds.com.