Corporate Asset Sales and Training Cuts Stall Female Leadership Gains in US C-Suites

As major American corporations sell off historical management retreats and pare back executive development budgets, the steady ascent of women into corporate leadership has slammed into a wall.

Formal management training programs—long the primary engine for preparing female executives to take over profit-and-loss roles essential for C-suite promotions—are being dismantled across the country. Industrial giant GE sold its storied Crotonville management academy during its corporate split, while 3M unloaded its Wonewok retreat in northern Minnesota, and Boeing parted with its 285-acre leadership center near St. Louis.

At the same time, employers with 10,000 or more workers cut average training expenditures by 12% to $11.7 million in 2025.

“Now almost no organization has a meaningful management development track, and so it’s very much survival of the fittest,” said Jane Edison Stevenson, global vice chair of board and CEO services at organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry. “It’s a problem in general, and it’s especially a problem for women.”

Stevenson noted that while previous corporate development initiatives created the current cohort of C-suite women, companies have increasingly abandoned these programs due to upfront costs and shorter executive tenures. “Our patience isn’t what it once was around development,” Stevenson said, adding that “CEO readiness is at an all-time low.”

The reduction in executive preparation comes as the share of female chief executives stalls. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which tracks leadership turnover at U.S. firms operating for at least two years with 10 or more employees, reported that women made up 25.5% of new CEOs appointed through October. That marks a decline from 26.4% during the same timeframe last year and falls 3.2 percentage points below the 28.7% high recorded in 2023. It represents the lowest rate of women stepping into corporate chief executive positions since 2020, when the figure stood at 23%.

Overall CEO turnover dropped 3.5% through October year-over-year, yet outgoing female chief executives left their posts at an accelerated pace, rising to 23% from 21% over the same period last year.

In the Fortune 500, the count of female CEOs currently stands at 52 and is scheduled to reach 54 in the first quarter of 2026—just shy of the record 55 recorded in June 2025. The shift comes as Insight CEO Joyce Mullen retires and three women step into top roles: Natascha Viljoen at Newmont, Lisa Atheton at Textron, and Mindy West at Murphy USA.

Beyond the Fortune 500, Meg O’Neill is slated to take over London-based BP in April, making her the first woman to lead a Big Oil firm.

Despite those individual appointments, progress across broader corporate governance has stalled. A report by 50/50 Women on Boards and Equilar revealed that female representation on Russell 3000 boards grew by just 0.1 percentage point year-over-year in the second quarter—the smallest increase in over ten years. In the third quarter, women secured 22.5% of 448 new board seats in the Russell 3000, setting another decade-low appointment pace.

Data from The Conference Board indicates women secured a net gain of only 47 board seats in the Russell 3000 in 2025, a sharp drop from 258 net gains in 2024 and 342 in 2023. Furthermore, 59% of those 2025 seat gains were created by expanding board sizes rather than replacing male directors. Female representation currently sits at 30.3% in the Russell 3000 and 34.3% in the S&P 500.

Heather Spilsbury, CEO of 50/50 Women on Boards, attributed the boardroom slowdown to heightened economic volatility and geopolitical pressures, including fluctuating tariffs, worker visa restrictions, persistent inflation, and shifting consumer behavior.

“There was a lot of angst with how companies were going to move forward this year, especially if they had government funding,” Spilsbury said. “That included what their board makeup looked like and how they recruited for board members and how they recruited for leadership as well.”

Spilsbury added that economic headwinds have led firms to delay succession planning. “If you’re not looking for new talent outside of your own threshold or your own board, it becomes very limited in terms of who’s being appointed to a board and where you’re searching for expertise,” she noted. “That’s where you see the progress stall; when companies aren’t really paying attention to that or it’s not their priority.”

Corporate focus on gender diversity policies is also wavering. According to the 2025 Women in the Workplace report by McKinsey and LeanIn.org, two in 10 employers report placing little to no priority on women’s career advancement, a metric that rises to three in 10 regarding women of color.

Workplace flexibility is simultaneously being scaled back. McKinsey found that 13% of employers reduced or eliminated flexible work policies this year, while 25% cut back remote or hybrid working options.

These shifts coincide with broader labor market contraction for female workers. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the employment rate for working-age women declined to 54.8% in November from 55.2% in January. Overall unemployment among women reached 4.5% last month, while unemployment for Black women stood at 7.1%.

Career progression bottlenecks persist in functional executive roles. While women holding S&P 100 P&L positions rose from 20% in 2022 to 24% last year, women remain heavily concentrated in positions that rarely lead to the CEO post, holding 72% of Chief Human Resources Officer roles in 2024.

Ambition gaps also widen as careers progress. McKinsey’s research found that while 80% of entry-level men aspire to promotions compared to 69% of women, the gap persists at senior levels, where 92% of men seek advancement compared to 84% of women.

Highlighting the loss of talent pipeline momentum, Stevenson argued that underutilizing female executives compromises corporate competitiveness. “We have a huge dearth of great leadership, and we have these categories of people …that could be the incremental difference,” Stevenson said. “What asset of any kind, if you had it available, would you not use? If you had oil that was available, you would use it. If you have money available, you use it. Women are an available resource that are being underutilized.”