The Utah Women and Leadership Project at Utah State University’s Jon M. Huntsman School of Business recently released an October 2024 study about the number of women in Utah who hold leadership positions. Recent numbers from the study show an overall increase from the two previous surveys conducted by the organization in 2014 and 2018. However, concerns about how the state stacks up against national averages and about the accessibility of these positions for women in Utah still exist.

“Importantly, however, in this year’s dataset, there were significantly more general managers than CEOs or presidents,” reads the study. “Yet, overall, in the past six years, there has been a solid increase in the percentage of women serving in top leadership roles in Utah businesses having 100 or more employees.”

Regardless of the number, the study says, the state is still lacking when it comes to having women in leadership positions, specifically in the corporate world.

“Utah has substantial work to do in promoting women into these leadership roles,” read the study.

Authors of the study include Shirlayne Quayle founder of the PowerLane Podcast, Susan Madsen founder of the UWLP and A Bolder Way Forward, and research fellow Robyn Blackburn.

Specifications about the type of companies included in the study incorporated whether the company had more than 100 employees, was not part of any nonprofit, educational or governmental organizations, and was not recently bought or acquired by another entity. 

In total, 1,765 companies were included in the study both local and national companies in Utah. It’s worth noting that whenever a national company was included, the Utah manager’s gender was recorded rather than the CEO’s to keep the information more locally based. 

Of the nearly 2,000 companies, about 20.4% of top leadership roles belonged to women, nearly double the 11.6% of women leadership reported in 2014. Of the corporate CEOs in Utah, only 9.6% were female.

 On the national level, women holding “chief executive positions,” including CEOs, board members and chief of staff was at 29.2% in 2023, showing the “gap” referred to by the study.

But even still, a 2015 report by CAP20 found the United States, compared to other countries, is “very unevenly” measuring up, as the U.S. ranked 26th in women’s economic participation and 73rd in women’s political empowerment that year.

What’s the breakdown by county and industry?

Of the women in Utah in leadership positions, the top industries for women CEOs from the study by UWLP include Educational Services, Health Care and Social Assistance and Accommodation and Food Services. The ones with the fewest women CEOs include Real Estate, Rental and Leasing where there are no women CEOs, Construction with just more than 1%, Finance and Insurance with nearly 2.5%, and Transportation and Warehousing with 4.5%.

The study further broke down two categories of women leadership, namely CEOs and corporate board members and the breakdown in different counties between males and females in leadership roles.

 Grouped Carbon, Emery, Grand, San Juan, Juab, Millard, Piute, Sanpete, and Sevier counties have the highest percentage of female Utah CEOs at 11.1% or 1 of 8. Davis, Salt Lake, Tooele and Weber counties have the lowest with only 9.3% or 40 out of 390 CEOs as female.

Counties with the highest participation of female corporate board members include Juab, Millard, Piute, Sanpete and Sevier with 33.3%. The lowest female board member percentage was in Box Elder and Cache counties with 19.5%.

What progress has there been for women in corporate Utah?

When corporate boards have female chairs, the study found it’s more “likely to have female directors and company CEOs” in the company too. 

The good news is the number of female chairs and board members has increased to 24.4% in 2024, following a dip from 14.2% in 2014 to 12% in 2018.

Another downward tick that seems to be on the mend and noted by the study was a decrease in CEOs, presidents and women directors during the same four-year period from 2014 to 2018.

“Our guess, although we are not certain,” read the study, “is that the influx of tech companies to Utah during that time brought with it more male CEOs, presidents, general managers (for those headquartered outside the state), corporate board members, and employees more generally.”

Authors of the study suggest that ways to keep increasing the role of women in leadership positions in Utah include participating in programs such as ElevateHER Corporate Challenge, receiving the 100 Companies Championing Women and A Bolder Way Forward initiative to thriving girls, women and children in the state. 

“It is our hope that the data and insights shared in this brief will spark discussion and assist companies in making needed structural changes to their leadership teams and corporate boards,” the conclusion of the study said.