by Jeroslyn jovonn
July 30, 2025
Black ladies have made extra strides in outer house than they’ve in company America.
The newly launched 2025 Fortune 500 CEO checklist underscores the numerous disparities Black ladies proceed to face in company America.
This 12 months’s checklist, which ranks U.S. corporations by income and spotlights the affect of their prime leaders, consists of solely two Black ladies, Forbes stories. Because the checklist’s debut in 1955, simply 5 Black ladies have ever appeared on it. In contrast, six Black ladies have traveled to house as astronauts, a formidable achievement that additionally highlights the stark underrepresentation of Black ladies in govt management.
It took over 50 years for Ursula Burns to interrupt obstacles as the primary Black girl to steer a Fortune 500 firm, serving as CEO of Xerox from 2009 to 2016. One other decade handed earlier than a Black girl appeared on the checklist once more, when Mary Winston briefly served as Mattress Tub & Past’s CEO in 2019. Rosalind Brewer of Walgreens joined the checklist in 2021, adopted later that 12 months by TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett, and in 2023 by Toni Townes-Whitley of Science Purposes Worldwide Corp. (SAIC).
Knowledge from the 2023 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics exhibits Black staff make up roughly 13% of the workforce however maintain simply 3.3% of executive-level positions. Black ladies, who comprise roughly 7.5% of the workforce, maintain fewer than 2% of C-suite roles, additional explaining the mere two Black ladies who made this 12 months’s Fortune 500 checklist.
“On the managerial stage, the Black share of the workforce declines to 7 %. Throughout the senior supervisor, VP, and SVP ranges, Black illustration holds regular at 4 to five %,” in keeping with McKinsey.
In the meantime, Black ladies have seen extra success and illustration within the aeronautics discipline. Since NASA’s inception, solely about 360 astronaut candidates have been chosen because the top notch in 1959, with simply 50 at the moment holding lively astronaut standing. The trail to changing into an astronaut is extremely aggressive, requiring distinctive abilities and the willingness to face important bodily dangers.
Nonetheless, regardless of this, NASA has chosen the next variety of Black ladies as astronauts than Fortune 500 corporations have allowed to steer their organizations. Notably, the primary Black girl astronaut, Mae Jemison, traveled to house in 1992, 17 years earlier than Ursula Burns turned the primary Black girl to function CEO of a Fortune 500 firm, main Xerox in 2009. It’s additionally price noting that Gayle King and Aisha Bowe’s Blue Origin spaceflight earlier this 12 months doesn’t classify them as official astronauts; the FAA designates them as “spaceflight members” or civilian house vacationers.
The newest Fortune 500 checklist reinforces findings from McKinsey’s 2024 Girls within the Office report, which revealed that the variety of Black ladies in management roles has fallen beneath pre-pandemic ranges. These gaps persist regardless of Black ladies steadily demonstrating larger ambition, holding comparable {qualifications}, and sometimes outperforming their friends, but remaining considerably underrepresented in company America.
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