Tony van Niekerk, Managing Editor, COVER Publications
- Since 1940 there has been 156 female country leaders.
- Muldova, a country in Eastern Europe, has had the most female leaders, numbering 4 since 2008.
- The United States and Japan are the only two countries in the G7 that have never had a female leader.
- The longest serving female country leader has been Angela Merkel, Germany. (15 years and 259 days)
- The shortest serving country female country leader has been Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, South Africa. (14 hours as Acting President, but with no sitting President at the time).
- Only 8% of Fortune 500 companies have female leaders. That’s only 41 companies. (Up from 3 in 2001)
- Karen S. Lynch, President and Chief Executive Officer of CVS Health (4rth largest Fortune 500 company), is considered the most powerful global CEO, leading more than 300 000 colleagues.
- In 2008, Norway obliged listed companies to reserve at least 40% of their director seats for women or face dissolution.
- According to BWASA, only 20.7% of local directors and 29.4% of executive managers are women, with just 11.8% holding chairperson positions. (Signium Intelligence and Intuition)
- Currently, of all the companies listed on the JSE, a mere 3.31% of their CEOs are female (PwC).
- The female representation at senior management and executive levels in South Africa is still on average only at 20% as reported in PwC’s REMchannel® July 2018 publication.
- The above study also showed that 61% of the females are remunerated below the median of the sample in comparison to 39% of males
- Kylie Jenner is the highest paid celebrity in the world in 2021, with Taylor Swift in second place
- The richest actor in the world in Jerry Seinfeld ($1bn) and the richest, self-made actress is Jessica Elba ($350bn)
- A 2018 Sports Illustrated article under the title “Who has won the most Wimbledon titles? lists Roger Federer with 8 titles. Yet, Martina Navratilova won 9 titles.
Enough Said!
This is a man’s worldBut it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing, not one little thing, without a woman or a girl
He’s lost in the wilderness
He’s lost in bitterness, he’s lost lost
Courtesy of James Brown (It’s a man’s man’s man’s world)