{"id":279428,"date":"2025-03-28T13:17:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T20:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/?p=279428"},"modified":"2025-03-28T13:17:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T20:17:00","slug":"gender-pay-gap-tightens-in-startups-c-suites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/?p=279428","title":{"rendered":"Gender Pay Gap Tightens in Startups&#8217;\u00a0C-Suites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to the Thelander Digest. Since March is\u00a0Women&#8217;s History Month, we dug into our private company dataset to look at how the representation of female C-Suite executives at private companies has changed YoY and what progress has been made in closing the gender pay gap between men and women at the highest levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Here&#8217;s what we found:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In 2024, women account for a larger percentage of C-Suite executives at private companies than they did in 2020.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The biggest gains were among Chief Customer Officers, Chief Strategy Officers, Chief Marketing Officers and CEOs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What&#8217;s more, female chiefs are starting to out-earn their male peers&nbsp;at companies with less than $90 Million in total financing raised to date.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image img-border\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/37d776a4-f267-fc10-4ddf-64dacee400a7.png\" alt=\"Percentage of Female Chiefs\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image img-border\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/1d914093-4fb2-8f9f-9128-2d9737f2f134.png\" alt=\"Female Median Total Cash as a % of Male\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\" alt=\"bullet\" class=\"wp-image-278614\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the median, female CEOs, CFOs, CTOs and Chief Scientific Officers, earn the\u00a0<em>same total cash<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0<em>more<\/em>\u00a0as their male counterparts, representing significant jumps from 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image img-border\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/7e2b094a-b1da-6aa6-ee0f-8eafcae57898.png\" alt=\"Female Median Total Cash as a % of Male\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\" alt=\"bullet\" class=\"wp-image-278614\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When looking at founder and non-founder CEOs of companies with less than $15 Million in total financing, female CEOs earn 6% less in total cash than their male counterparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\" alt=\"bullet\" class=\"wp-image-278614\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In both cases, female founder and non-founder CEOs earn less equity than their male peers, a difference of over 2%.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image img-border\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/958428b1-7baf-2f25-8a00-8728338d28d1.png\" alt=\"CEO Compensation by Gender\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\" alt=\"bullet\" class=\"wp-image-278614\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At later stage companies ($90 Million+ in total financing), female founder and non-founder CEOs are nearly at parity with their male counterparts, earning a difference of less than $2,000 at the median.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\" alt=\"bullet\" class=\"wp-image-278614\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, male founder and non-founder CEOs continue to out-earn women when it comes to equity, with male founder CEOS earning more than a percentage more than female founder CEOs. When you look at top performing CEOs, those within the 75th percentile, at later stage companies, base pay for male CEOs has remained steady over the past four years while female CEOs have experience more volatility, demonstrating continued inconsistencies in pay for female founders.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image img-border\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/27a3d3b9-6c1a-872e-c788-2947b3268751.png\" alt=\"CEO Compensation by Gender\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bullet-swirl.png\" alt=\"bullet\" class=\"wp-image-278614\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What&#8217;s the takeaway?\u00a0<\/strong>The gender pay gap is narrowing among chief executives of privately held companies. However, female representation is low overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>\u00a0We encourage you to participate in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/survey.jthelander.com\/surveys\/1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0<strong>trial the online platform and see how your base salaries, bonuses, annual cash, founder and non-founder equity, option pool, non-investor board comp and more\u00a0compare\u00a0to market.<\/strong>\u00a0If you&#8217;d like to learn more about Thelander or discuss our consulting services, you can\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:info@jthelander.com?subject=I%20am%20interested%20in%20learning%20about%20Thelander%27s%20consulting%20services%20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">email<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0call us: +1.305.793.8605<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/survey.jthelander.com\/surveys\/1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Start the Survey Now<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome back to the Thelander Digest. Since March is\u00a0Women&#8217;s History Month, we dug into our private company dataset to look at how the representation of female C-Suite executives at private companies has changed YoY and what progress has been made in closing the gender pay gap between men and women at the highest levels. Here&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4],"class_list":["post-279428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter","tag-newsletter","tag-private-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=279428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=279428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=279428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=279428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}