ON Partners Report Reveals Executive Women Secure Higher Base Salaries Than Men

CLEVELAND, March 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- This month, ON Partners, a pure-play retained executive search firm building C-level and board leadership teams, released its 2024 Women’s Report in recognition of Women’s History Month. The report reveals a positive trend as the gender pay gap is narrowing year-over-year (YoY), with executive women earning an average of $452k, compared to executive men's average of $461k. In addition, when isolating Director and vice president (VP) roles as a pipeline of future C-suite executives, women are leading in average total compensation.

A McKinsey Women in the Workplace report from 2023 highlighted the strides made in women's representation in senior roles. Since 2015, there has been a remarkable surge of women in C-suite and senior VP positions. While women still face underrepresentation across the corporate pipeline, the number of women in the C-suite has increased from 17 to 28 percent. This encouraging trend is also mirrored in the enhanced representation of women at the VP and senior VP levels. 

“The ‘COVID period’ when companies were recruiting remotely and more accepting of remote executives was a turning point for female supply chain executives, particularly those in procurement,” said Heidi Hoffman, partner at ON Partners.  “I have also not seen that female supply chain executives make less money than their male counterparts.  The comp levels for all these executives have been rising tremendously as the role moves into the C-suite and takes on a more strategic position.” 

Continues Hoffman, “Additionally, I have seen an increased number of female entrepreneurs in the supply chain, identifying long-standing issues and building technology-driven solutions to solve them.” 

However, in the life sciences and healthcare sector, Partner Suzanne Zebedee, Ph.D. confirmed that women candidates for early-stage C-suite roles currently face limited leadership role opportunities. Zebedee said, “The executive positions where we look to source and recruit first-time CEOs are COO, CCO, and CBO roles.  It would be great to have more women gaining experience in these C-level roles as a pathway to increase women executive leaders and women CEOs in the industry.” 

As companies navigate challenges and opportunities associated with hiring for executive leadership roles, total compensation packages are a strong focus in combating the gender gap within the workforce.  On average, ON data found that executive men secured a bigger bonus and equity payout in 2023. This resulted in men obtaining an average sign-on bonus of $143k and women of $129k. As it pertained to average base salaries, executive women negotiated a higher base pay.  This data suggests that women are placing more emphasis on immediate salary compensation benefits. 

Adds Tara Flickinger, partner at ON Partners, “Oftentimes, there is too much of an emphasis on first year’s cash during hiring negotiations that executive candidates lose sight of the long game and important components of the total package, including long-term incentives and equity.” 

The 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report by Payscale provided additional insight into the variation of wages.  Women earn 83 cents on the dollar compared to men, with executives facing an even wider gap at 72 cents.  In addition, women were found to be more likely to stay in individual contributor roles longer than their male counterparts.  However, ON data shows that in the last ten years, executive women have consistently changed jobs faster than men.  Also, in the previous few years, men have increased their tenure in a role while women remain consistent in switching jobs on average every 2.4 years.  

As non-conformists in the executive hiring domain, ON Partners seeks to bring transparency and clarity to the ongoing dialogue surrounding compensation parity at the executive level. To learn more about ON’s approach to data innovation and talent intelligence, visit https://onpartners.com/contact-executive-recruitment-agency/. 

About ON Partners 
Established in 2006, ON Partners is the only pure-play executive search firm building inclusive C-level and board leadership teams. We rebuilt the institution of executive search in the way you work, with an approach that includes present partners who engage with clients from the first brief to the final decision, individually crafted solutions unique to each client, and an easier experience overall. Named by Forbes as one of America’s Best Executive Recruiting Firms and to the Inc. 500/5000 List nine times, ON Partners is consistently ranked among the top 20 retained executive search firms in the U.S. 

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