Women in retail: Milestones are not enough

Retail is an industry that depends overwhelmingly on female consumers and a female workforce, yet women consistently fail to reach its highest executive roles.

Fashion presents perhaps the most glaring paradox of all. Women buy two-thirds of all clothing and accessories and represent 85% of fashion consumers, yet executive roles remain predominantly held by men.

On the face of it, 2025 was a landmark year for women in UK retail leadership and at first blush, the numbers suggest that the dial may be shifting. According to Korn Ferry, of 40 new retail chief executives, managing directors and interim CEOs in 2025, 14 were women, representing the most ever recorded and the highest proportion since data collection began in 2012. Among the new cohort of female leaders, many were first-time CEOs.

These are genuine milestones, and they deserve recognition, but context is everything. Zoom out beyond the headline numbers and you find that women remain significantly under-represented in top executive roles. 

Why are women under-represented in top roles?

Several structural reasons explain why.  

• The pipeline drops off long before the boardroom. Women hold nearly half of entry-level roles, but their representation declines sharply with each layer of management. A  major pinch point is the "first promotion" gap: for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 81 women are promoted.

• Boards and nomination committees, tend to favour candidates who resemble those who have held senior roles before - which, in practice, means other men.

• In fashion and retail, women often hold roles in HR, legal, or operations rather than in commercial or profit-and-loss leadership pipelines - the very roles that typically feed into CEO succession. McKinsey's Women in the Workplace 2024 report found that women more often end up in support functions than in business-driving roles.

• Despite public commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion, 80% of retail employees say they cannot cite clear evidence of gender-equality progress in their companies. 

How retail organisations are missing out

For those who remain unconvinced by the moral argument, there is a compelling and well-evidenced commercial case for greater gender diversity at the top of retail organisations.

• Companies with gender-diverse leadership consistently outperform financially. Gender-diverse boards are 27% more likely to outperform. For shareholders, institutional investors and remuneration committees, this alone ought to settle the debate.

• Diverse teams bring varied perspectives and problem-solving approaches. Women CEOs and gender-diverse teams tend to drive more creativity and resilience. In a sector subject to rapid shifts in consumer behaviour, technology and supply chains, cognitive diversity at the top is not a luxury - it is a competitive necessity.

• In sectors where women make the majority of purchase decisions - as is the case in fashion, beauty and general retail - a diverse leadership team ensures decisions better align with consumer needs. Brands with women CEOs are often better positioned to connect authentically with diverse customer bases. 

• Modern employees prioritise inclusive workplaces. Retailers with strong DEI practices see higher employee engagement, with 78% of employees in companies with strong DEI cultures saying they experience equal opportunity. In an industry that struggles with high staff turnover and recruitment challenges, this is a meaningful commercial advantage.

The record number of female appointments in UK retail in 2025 is genuinely welcome, but continued commitment is essential to maintain momentum. Closing the gap requires a different approach to and investment in pipelines, sponsorship, succession planning, and - critically - a willingness to place women in profit-and-loss roles long before the CEO search begins. 

Lessons from the legal industry

Many years ago, when I was admitted as a solicitor, law had its own gender-diversity leadership challenge. Fast forward to 2026 and the position is changing. 44% of our partners are female and we are working towards a 50/50 split. Here are some of the measures we have taken, and are intending to take to improve balance within our organisation:

• Do you deter female applicants in your recruitment process? We have worked with the linguistics department at the University of Nottingham to improve language and visuals in our recruitment campaigns. Very often, applicants can be deterred from applying or may choose a less challenging role, based on the terminology in an advert or the images used in the company’s website. 

• Is your approach to talent pipelines inclusive? Do you consider everyone who has been with the business for a set number of years or who holds a particular class of qualification? We look at everyone at a particular point in their career and continue to do so at regular intervals. At entry level, we use anonymised CVs, stripping out qualifications and identifying features. If you leave in “interests”, recruiters are more likely to recruit in their own image. In short, if you adopt a narrow approach to pipelines, you will miss out on talent. 

• Do you run leadership preparation training courses and if so, how do you choose attendees? Far better to choose a wide pool and equip everyone with the skills they need, than choose a narrow pool. Provided you are honest up front that progression is not guaranteed, you are giving yourselves the widest possible talent pool. 

• Do you make assumptions about whether an employee wants to progress? We have stopped this by forcing the question. If someone is not ready for progression, they deserve to be told why and what they need to do to get themselves ready. Transparency is everything.

• Gender-balanced promotion panels are essential to reduce bias, but broader diversity - across ethnicity, background, age, and experience - also equips panels to evaluate talent more holistically and creates a more engaging and effective interview process. 

• Sponsorship can be a particularly thorny issue. Very often applicants succeed because of who they know in an organisation. When I was starting out, a lot of sponsorship happened on the golf course. Now, we use more formal sponsorship programmes that match up individuals who very likely will not have the same interests. A successful programme needs careful thought if you want to avoid some of the hurdles mentioned previously, but done well, it can help individuals prepare for senior roles.

• Succession needs to be planned at an early stage to ensure that the business has what it needs. Businesses need to plan actively, rather than allowing an incumbent simply to anoint their successor. Of course, the incumbent needs to be a key part of the conversation, but businesses need to remove the personal at all levels and make succession planning a team effort.

• Visible leadership matters. Encourage your senior women to use their platform and visibility to inspire, mentor, and open doors for the next generation of female talent.

• And finally, businesses need to place women in profit-and-loss roles long before the CEO search begins. Why not create senior internships so that women in your organisation have the opportunity to build their skills across the business. 

Next steps: A practical checklist for retail businesses

• Audit your recruitment language: Review the words and images in your job adverts and on your website - consider seeking external input to identify where you may be deterring strong candidates.

• Broaden your talent pipeline - and review it regularly: Look at everyone at consistent career stages, not just those already on a senior leader's radar. A narrow pipeline means missed talent.

• Anonymise your CVs at entry level: Strip out names, identifying details, and personal interests to reduce the risk of recruiters hiring in their own image.

• Open up leadership preparation training: Equip a wide cohort with the skills they need, rather than pre-selecting a narrow group. Be transparent that participation does not guarantee progression.

• Make career conversations explicit: Do not assume you know whether someone wants to progress. Ask directly, and if an employee is not yet ready, tell them clearly what they need to do to get there.

• Diversify your promotion and interview panels: Aim for balance across gender, ethnicity, age, and background. Broader panels make better, fairer decisions.

• Formalise your sponsorship programme: Move away from informal networks and put structured programmes in place that connect individuals who may not naturally cross paths.

• Make succession planning a team effort - and start early: Do not leave it to an incumbent to choose their successor. Build a structured, collective process well in advance of any vacancy.

• Give women commercial experience now: Prioritise women in profit-and-loss roles and create senior internships or cross-business secondments long before a CEO search is on the horizon.

• Ask yourself the hard question: What is your organisation actually doing - and is it enough?

The business case is clear. The commercial imperative is proven. What’s stopping you?