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Let’s pause for a moment and think about our country’s most successful CEOs — the leaders who run large companies, decide on investments worth billions of lira, shape the future of thousands of employees, and set the direction for their industries. How many of these leaders are women?
In Turkey, women’s visibility in different sectors of the business world is increasing every year. The share of women graduates at universities is rising, more women managers hold positions in professional life, more women receive investment in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, and the influence of women leaders in institutions’ transformation processes is steadily growing. But when it comes to the CEO position, the top seat of a company, the picture changes markedly.
Looking today at Turkey’s largest and most successful companies, we see that the share of women CEOs still stands at around 10 percent. In other words, of every 10 leaders shaping the future of these companies, about 9 are men. This is not just a matter of representation — it is an indicator of a larger issue that extends from the understanding of leadership to talent management, from equal opportunity to corporate culture.
So is the problem really a shortage of women leaders, or are we facing a leadership potential we still fail to evaluate adequately?
Should we be saddened by this picture for our country’s sake — or by the fact that women who are educated, who work, who produce, who run institutions and deliver results are still not reaching senior management positions in sufficient numbers?
Perhaps by both. Because this is not only about women’s career journeys. It is also directly related to countries’ economic performance, innovation capacity, corporate resilience and potential for sustainable growth.
Today in Turkey, women take on important roles at universities, in professional life and across many sectors. We see successful women executives in many fields, from health to finance, from education to technology. But when it comes to the CEO seat, the picture changes markedly. This is not unique to Turkey either. Even in the world’s most advanced economies, the vast majority of CEO positions are still held by men. Although the share of women CEOs at Fortune 500 companies has reached its highest levels in history in recent years, it still hovers around 10 percent. In other words, roughly 90 percent of the world’s largest companies are run by male CEOs. So the picture we see in Turkey today is, in fact, a reflection of a structural reality that the global business world is also struggling to resolve.
In fact, the issue is not whether women can succeed or not. The issue is access to opportunities, visibility, mentorship, and representation in decision-making mechanisms. Women often have to work longer, produce more results and prove themselves more just to reach the same position. As a result, while a strong pool of women forms at the middle levels of management in many institutions, this ratio drops rapidly as one moves toward top management. This invisible barrier, defined in the literature as the “glass ceiling,” continues to persist today in more subtle forms.
The Thought-Provoking Paradox of the Health Sector
This issue presents a particularly striking picture for the health sector. Because healthcare is one of the sectors worldwide with the highest concentration of female employment. According to World Health Organization data, women make up roughly 70 percent of the health workforce. A similar structure exists in Turkey. From hospitals’ operational processes to quality management, from patient experience to human resources, a large part of the system is kept running by the labor of women professionals. Yet when we look at the CEO, general manager and board levels, we do not see the same representation.
Although a great many women keep hospitals running, manage teams, raise patient satisfaction and successfully carry out operations, it is clear they are not present in the same proportions at the center of the sector’s decision-making mechanisms. Yet healthcare is precisely one of the fields where women’s leadership is strong. Critical competencies of today’s leadership — empathy, team management, crisis leadership, stakeholder management, patient-centeredness and building a sustainable corporate culture — have been successfully practiced by women executives in the health sector for years.
What Has the World Learned From Successful Women Leaders?
Looking at the common traits of women who rise to senior leadership positions in the health sector worldwide, we see a striking profile. These leaders are not just good health executives. They are also leaders who can read finance, manage investment processes, understand technological transformation, use human resources as a strategic tool, and carry their institutions into the future. Among the elements that stand out in successful women CEOs’ careers are a strong educational foundation, long-term career planning, financial literacy, strategic thinking skills, international experience and strong mentorship networks. In other words, becoming CEO means not just managing operations, but being able to design the company’s future.
What Needs to Change for More Women CEOs in Turkey?
If we want to see more women CEOs in Turkey’s health sector and in the business world at large, we cannot expect this to happen through individual effort alone. Corporate systems also need to transform toward this goal. First of all, boards of directors must treat this issue not as a diversity target, but as a matter of strategic growth and sustainability. Because research shows that management teams with higher diversity make better decisions, manage risk more soundly, and are more successful in long-term performance. Institutions should therefore identify the leaders of the future early, build pools of women leaders, strengthen mentorship and sponsorship programs, increase visibility in senior roles, and give women executives greater responsibility especially in finance, investment, mergers and acquisitions, and strategic growth. Because the road to the CEO seat often runs not just through being a good manager, but through being able to read the company’s entire business model.
A young woman executive believes more strongly that she can reach that seat when she sees leaders who resemble her. That is why sharing success stories is not just about celebrating individual achievements — it is also about developing the leaders of the future.
As a woman executive who has worked in the health sector for more than thirty-five years, I have had the chance to closely observe both the challenges and the opportunities of this transformation. I have seen countless times how women manage crises, how they motivate teams, how they add value to corporate culture, and how they build sustainable success. But I have also seen that they are still not sufficiently represented at the head of the decision-making table.
The Leadership of the Future Will Be More Diverse
The health system of the future will not be shaped by technology, artificial intelligence or new investments alone, but by leaders who can bring together different perspectives, combine empathy with strategy, and deliver sustainable growth while thinking in a human-centered way. Far more women fit within this definition of leadership. Today, the share of women in the top management of companies may still not be at the desired level. But history shows us that every transformation begins first with awareness. There are still invisible barriers to overcome. But at the same time, there is also a strong generation of women leaders rising in the health sector, in technology, in entrepreneurship and in the corporate world.
That is why the real question is not why there are so few women, but why boards of directors have not developed more women leaders.
Because the institutions of the future will be ones that define leadership not by gender, but by competence.
And I believe that in the near future, when we look at CEO lists, what will surprise us will not be how few women there are, but why they were represented so little in the past.
