Women in Corporate Leadership: It Pays in More Ways Than One

According to Business Insider, a new study by Goldman Sachs shows that companies with greater numbers of women in management and board positions outperformed those that were more primarily led by men. The study looked at 600 European stocks, and those with stronger female leadership had a share price outperformance on average of 2.5 percent per year compared to companies with less female leaders. Sharon Bell, Strategist with Goldman Sachs, explains that having more women in senior positions is not just a target, but makes real sense for share price performance.

Reasons for Higher Performance

Women-led companies add more diverse opinions within an organization and often offer different approaches than male counterparts. While both perspectives (from men and women) are valuable to an organization, the key strength here is the diversity of perspective offered. In addition, the employee pool is larger when a company considers both male and female candidates, which allows them to attract the best possible talent.

Investing in Women-led Companies

As an investor, you have endless options of where to allocate your resources. If you’re interested in sustainable investing and putting dollars into women-owned and operated companies, here’s some tips to help you in your journey:

1. Use your investment dollars: there are mutual funds and exchange traded funds available that only invest in companies with a certain percentage of women on their board or in upper management.
2. Use the Women Owned directory: this website lists women-owned businesses with consumer-facing products or services and can be extremely helpful in your searches.

This Year’s Most Powerful Women

For 23 years, Fortune has created its Most Powerful Women list for businesses across the country. This year, Fortune added an interesting (and very relevant) new benchmark for its candidates. It stated: “In this moment of crisis and uncertainty, is she using her influence to shape her company and the wider world for the better?”

There are new names to this year’s list, of course, featuring women who aspire to improve their companies both socially and environmentally.

• Lisa Jackson, who is tasked with ensuring Apple becomes carbon neutral by 2030.
• Barbara Whye is in charge of making sure Apple reflects the true composition of the U.S. workforce through inclusion and diversity efforts and is also helping to set standards across the tech industry.
• Alicia Boler Davis leads Amazon’s initiative to keep thousands of warehouse employees safe as they work extra hours meeting the increasing consumer demand.
• Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX, is sending astronauts into space from the U.S.
• Dana Canedy is the first Black American to lead a major publishing imprint.

This year, the list is more diverse than any Fortune list to date. The bottom line is this: the more women we have in leadership roles, the more potential for future success.

At Sikich, we’re passionate about empowering investors to find ways to help you make meaningful investments. Whether you’d like to talk about impact investing or women empowerment, contact our wealth management experts today.

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Investment advisory services offered through Sikich Financial, an SEC registered investment advisor.