Quick summary: Recent analysis of nearly 19, 000 senior managers and board members over two decades shows that women must cultivate significantly wider and more influential professional networks than men to secure equivalent leadership roles despite similar experience and backgrounds. This persistent informal barrier rooted in closed circles and reliance on personal connections means female directors often serve as vital bridges across groups and benefit strongly from female to female ties that boost promotion chances through mentorship and sponsorship. Organisations and universities should therefore redesign talent programmes and recruitment practices to broaden access to these networks since doing so supports better mental wellbeing for aspiring leaders reduces structural disadvantages and delivers proven gains in company performance and public policy goals for diversity.
Professional networks are often the invisible hand that determines who reaches the top of the corporate ladder. While individual merit and qualifications are vital, the informal social processes of being noticed and trusted often decide who receives an invitation into the boardroom. Recent research into the career paths of thousands of executives has found that women must navigate a far more demanding networking landscape than their male counterparts to reach the same leadership positions. The findings were published in Patterns.
The study followed the histories of nearly 19,000 senior managers and board members over two decades to understand how these hidden structures influence career progression. It revealed a persistent glass ceiling effect where female board members are required to build significantly wider and more influential networks to attain roles comparable to men. Even when women have similar professional experience and demographic backgrounds, they must clear a higher informal threshold of connectivity to be considered for director appointments.
Cristián Bravo, PhD, Professor at Western University and one of the researchers behind the study, said the project had been a long time coming. “This idea was born 11 years ago,” he noted. “The first studies that showed that companies with a more diverse board of directors performed better were being published, and a seminal paper that showed that the size of the Rolodex of a director had a meaningful impact on a company’s performance had appeared.”
These findings suggest that corporate boardrooms are still heavily influenced by closed circles and old boys’ networks. Because many firms rely on personal connections to recruit new directors rather than using open and transparent processes, women often remain at a structural disadvantage. To overcome these barriers, women who do reach the board typically possess unusually broad and central positions within their professional communities, acting as vital bridges between different groups.
Interestingly, the research highlighted that connections between women are a powerful engine for change. Female-to-female professional ties were found to strongly boost the chances of promotion for women, pointing to the immense value of mentorship and sponsorship within underrepresented groups. When senior women support one another, they create a parallel track that helps to bypass some of the traditional networking obstacles that have historically favoured men.
Professor Bravo noted that the implications extend well beyond the boardroom. “Their school, professional, and even charitable or social networks can have an outsized impact in their ability to reach the upper echelons of management,” he said. “Universities need to foment clubs where these networks are created and talent management programs within companies can be crafted, understanding that the connections they create will have impact long after the employees have departed.”
Addressing these disparities requires a shift in focus from individual shortcomings to organisational practices. Experts suggest that firms must widen their recruitment channels and reduce their overreliance on closed, informal networks. Building a more diverse board is not just a matter of fairness but also of economic sense, with previous evidence linking diverse board composition to improved financial performance, lower borrowing costs, and reduced financial risks.
