Critical moment for women in finance

LONDON, April 18, 2025 –– 2025 is a critical moment for women in finance, OMFIF’s Gender Balance Index highlights, as modest gains in representation are threatened by growing backlash against inclusion initiatives.

Now in its 12th year, the GBI tracks the presence of women and men in senior positions across 335 institutions globally, including 185 central banks, 50 public pension funds, 50 sovereign funds and 50 commercial banks. For the first time in the index’s history, three institutions – Banco Central de Chile, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Norges Bank Investment Management – achieved perfect scores of 100, signifying complete gender balance according to OMFIF’s weighted methodology. However, these represent only 1% of the institutions tracked.

Sovereign funds demonstrated the largest year-on-year improvement and have doubled their average GBI score to 38 in 2025 from 19 in 2021, driven primarily by progress in emerging markets. For instance, Kuwait Investment Authority, the Sovereign Fund of Egypt and Public Investment Corporation in South Africa are funds ranked in the top 10 for the first time this year.

Meanwhile, pension funds maintain their leadership in gender balance with an average score of 50. However, they have shown no improvement since 2024, as the share of female chief executive officers also fell to 24%, suggesting a possible plateau under current approaches. More broadly, the average score for all institutions in the index is 42 – less than halfway to parity.

Figure 1. Improvements in gender balance across institutions

Average GBI scores (100 = perfect gender balance)

Note: The sample of pension and sovereign funds included in the index changed in 2022 to cover 50 of the largest institutions by AUM.

Central banks and commercial banks also showed progress, with scores rising to 40 and 42 respectively. The number of female central bank governors reached a record high this year, following new appointments including Vathana Dalaloy at the Bank of the Lao PDR and Beth Hammack at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Maysaa Sabrine, who was appointed as the governor of the Central Bank of Syria in December 2024, took the total number of female governors up to 30. However, she has since resigned as of March 2025.

Overall, the share of female leaders increased to 16% which is higher than ever before, albeit a few decimal points more than the share in 2024. Further down the pipeline, the picture shows subtle progress, with women at the deputy governor/C-suite level increasing to 28% in 2025 from 26% in 2024. Overall female representation in senior staff has edged up to 32% from 31%, raising a crucial question: have institutions reached a self-imposed diversity ceiling or is there still room for meaningful progress?

Progress in the pipeline was in part due to commercial banks rebounding after their backslide in 2024. The share of women in C-suite positions across all commercial banks rose to 19% after falling to 15% last year, as did the share of women in executive committees – rising to 29% from 25%. At the top level, the number of female CEOs increased to seven with Bettina Orlopp becoming acting CEO of Commerzbank where she was previously chief financial officer.

The types of roles women hold also matter, as the GBI reveals persistent gender imbalance in role types. Across commercial banks, pension funds and sovereign funds, women hold just 26% of revenue-generating positions, with a profit and loss accountability – the very roles from which future CEOs are typically selected. This disparity is particularly significant given that four of the five new female leaders were internal promotions, underscoring the importance of building diverse talent pipelines within institutions.

As 2025 unfolds, financial institutions face a defining choice: dial back diversity initiatives in response to political and economic headwinds or double down on gender balance efforts at this inflection point for women in finance. The decisions now are likely to shape the sector’s gender parity landscape for years to come.

OMFIF

https://thecooperator.news/comesa-central-banks-get-expertise-in-big-data-analytics-and-ai/

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