South Africa nears gender parity in business leadership
While global progress on gender equality in business leadership has stalled, South Africa is moving in the opposite direction. Although the country has largely solved for representation, there’s a new gap emerging: influence. The latest SNG Grant Thornton Women in Business 2026 report shows that 47.3% of senior management roles in South Africa are now held by women, far ahead of the global average of 32.9%, which has declined slightly this year. It is a striking divergence, indicating that equal gender representation in South Africa is becoming structural. More notably, not a single South African business surveyed reported an all-male senior management team, a milestone achieved by only a handful of economies worldwide. But beneath these headline gains, the data points to a more complex shift: the challenge is no longer getting women into leadership, it is ensuring they shape it. Says Agnes Dire, Board Chairperson and Director at SNG Grant Thornton: “The next challeng...