Black women continue to be sorely underrepresented in leadership roles in corporate America. Currently, they make up 12.7% of the U.S. population, yet they represent only 1.3% of senior management and executive roles of S&P 500 firms, 2.2% of Fortune 500 boards of directors, and in a post-Ursula Burns world, there is not a single black female CEO in the Fortune 500.
Interviews with 59 Black Female Executives Explore Intersectional Invisibility and Strategies to Overcome It
Black women continue to be sorely underrepresented in leadership roles in corporate America. But a small subset have found success as leaders. Researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 59 Black women executives who have occupied senior-level positions in U.S. corporations. They sought to understand the barriers they faced, their strategies for ascending through the organization, and the tools they used to manage significant organizational change efforts and navigate career risks. Their findings indicate that one main driver of these women’s success was their ability to navigate the challenge of intersectional invisibility, or the tendency to be overlooked, disregarded, or forgotten due to one’s token status as a member of two underrepresented groups. The women they interviewed combatted this by taking on visible, high-risk roles that helped them ascend to the upper echelons of their companies.