A new law, The Gender Balance on Corporate Boards Directive, requires large listed companies in the EU to appoint members of the underrepresented gender (usually women) to 33% of all director roles and 40% of non-executive director roles by June 2026. Consider the following questions to see if you’re ready to make the change.

1. How can we ensure that women are considered for the top jobs?

a. Through a positive selection process that excludes men.

b. By using external auditors.

c. By relaxing the job spec.

2. How can we tackle unfair biases that may prevent women from being promoted?

a. Through focusing solely on unconscious bias training.

b. By blaming people for behavior that shows unfair bias.

c. By using metrics to analyze the stats regarding promotion and adapting processes accordingly.

3. Women already occupy many senior management roles in our company. How can we help them progress to boards?

a. Look for board candidates with non-traditional backgrounds.

b. Provide financial education and training for women.

c. Just do nothing and wait, gender equality will happen naturally.

4. Our leadership has good intentions. How can we motivate them to do more to promote women?

a. Assess them on their record of promoting women.

b. Draw up explicit KPIs for them.

c. Devise informal ways to signal you’re serious about this.

The best action to take

1 (b). Appointing external auditors tasked with ensuring diversity of candidates to review lists for executive roles increases transparency and accountability. It ensures that women are considered for roles conducive to progression to the board.

2 (c). Enshrining robust formal criteria for promotion and appointment to key roles works best. Without objective standards, women are likely to be disadvantaged by unfair biases. While unconscious bias training is used widely today, research shows it doesn’t work in bringing about less biased, more lasting behavior change compared with goal setting and putting the focus on the system as opposed to the individual. Highlighting undesirable behavior – in other words, shaming individuals – only causes resentment and will backfire.

3 (a and b). Women in senior management tend to be drawn from HR and communication roles. These are traditionally not seen as bringing boardroom-relevant experience – but in turbulent times, non-traditional backgrounds can bring new perspectives to boards. Still, financial literacy is key to be seen as equal on boards. Hence, greater financial education for women will help smooth their path to progress and benefit the company in reputational terms when your leaders sit on the boards of other organizations.

4 (a, b, and c). Leaders and managers at all levels should be held formally responsible for gender equality in their promotional practices. Informally signaling you are serious about meeting the targets will help, but setting explicit KPIs will hold people accountable for their actions – and speed change faster than declarations of good intent.

Key takeaway

Action to address gender imbalance in the boardrooms of large EU companies has largely been left to the initiative of such organizations. As of June 2025, addressing the imbalance will be required by law. Eradicating the barriers to progress now will ensure you fulfill the requirements progressively and productively without having to resort to panic solutions down the line.

To learn more…

• Women on European boards: A route towards 40%. 
• There’s a $4tn opportunity on the table but women will get less than 1%. Is this the best we can do?  
• Women in leadership: Key insights from the boardroom and beyond. 
• Here’s a wizard idea: Set free your inner Dorothy.