US employees are 93.6% more likely to have a male CEO

Micheal Brennan

US employees are 93.6% more likely to have a male CEO than a female CEO according to a study we recently completed.

The team here at Allsorter analyzed 1000 of the World’s largest companies and found that of the 1000 companies, only 64 (6.4%) of the company CEOs were women. Meanwhile, 936 (93.6%) were male.

Originally, we were aiming to find the most common names for CEOs, but when we pulled together a list of the most ‘common’ names with the intention of finding the most ‘successful’ names, and realized only six female names appeared more than once, we realized there might be an even bigger issue at hand.

The name Sarah appeared three times on the list of names, Barbara appeared two times, and Jennifer, Laura, and Anna all also appeared twice.

Meanwhile, David appeared 34 times on the list for the most popular male names, Michael (32), John and Robert (24), James (22), and Richard (18).

Meaning, if you were only to include their most common name list (names that came up more than once) – employees would be 75.6% more likely to have a CEO named David than a CEO who is a woman.

Check out the Tables To See The Most Popular CEO Names:

The Popular CEO Names (Female)

Quantity

Sarah

3

Barbara

2

Jennifer

2

Laura

2

Anna

2

Michele

2

The Most Popular CEO Names (Male)

Quantity

David

34

Michael

32

John

24

Robert

24

James

22

Richard

18

Thomas

15

Mark

15

Jeffrey

14

Eric

13

William

12

Brian

12

Christopher

11

Andrew

11

Ryan

10

Steven

10

Dan

10

Franck Fogliaresi CRO for Allsorter said: “When we analyzed the most popular names alone, employees were 72.3% more likely to have a CEO named David than a CEO who is a woman. This simply isn’t acceptable in 2023.”

“Our software aims to put a stop to gender bias in the workplace, and hiring bias in general, something evidently still needed if our research is anything to go by.”

Data Sources:

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/us-tmt-22-deloitte-technology-fast-500-ranking-list.pdf

https://www.databahn.com/products/2022-fortune-500-list-free-excel-spreadsheet-list-download