Each quarter, this podcast releases our research data on the demographic makeup of IT leadership, broken down by race and sex. By surveying public websites, we’re looking to track the change over time.
This quarter, we surveyed 300 companies and four thousand one hundred fifty four nine. 48% vendors, 48% technology providers. This quarter, we found that 87.1% are White, and 2.8% are Black. The breakdown is also 78% male. The data remains similar between vendors and tech providers. When we look at publically traded or Fortune 100 companies do the numbers improve for women, remaining at 26%. The racial divide remains within 2 percent.
This data is essentially identical tall of the data reports for 2024 and for 2025, keeping us on track for little movement.
The latest Commission for Employment Equity report reveals that while the number of women in the information and communication technology sector has increased, men still dominate management roles. Currently, the sector employs 116,783 women, which marks an increase of over 11,000 women since 2021, particularly among African females. Despite this progress, men occupy the majority of top management positions, with 2,237 white males leading the count, compared to only 1,351 women in top roles, of whom 591 are white females. The report highlights a persistent gender imbalance, especially at senior management levels, where women hold only 4,708 positions, demonstrating the ongoing challenges in achieving true equity within the ICT workforce.
A recent article from Techopedia highlights the troubling trend of women leaving the technology sector, driven by a lack of career progression rather than personal responsibilities. According to the 2025 Lovelace Report, between 40,000 and 60,000 women exit technology roles in the UK each year, resulting in an economic loss ranging from £1.4 billion to £2.2 billion annually due to decreased productivity and recruitment challenges. The report reveals that only 3% of women cited caregiving as a reason for leaving, with the primary factors being limited advancement opportunities and inadequate recognition.
Microsoft has quietly ended its Black Partner Growth Initiative after a planned five-year run, which commenced in June 2020 following the death of George Floyd. This program aimed to support Black-owned or Black-led businesses within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, working with over 1,450 partners and helping them collectively increase revenue by 328 percent. Despite the program’s success, analyst Shelly Kramer noted that the closure reflects a broader trend of skepticism toward initiatives supporting minority-owned businesses, often labeled as “woke.” Microsoft stated they will continue to provide resources to all partners and focus on innovation and artificial intelligence enablement moving forward.
Why do we care?
The numbers say the quiet part out loud: barely any change in who runs tech. At the same time, the UK’s Lovelace Report says tens of thousands of women bail out of tech every year because they can’t move up. That’s not a culture war story—that’s a capacity drain you pay for in overtime, missed projects, and busted margins. And with DEI now a dirty word in some boardrooms, the smart move is to relabel this as what it is: profit and delivery.
Here’s the play: fix the first promotion—that’s where the pipeline breaks. Track time-to-manager and time-to-director by cohort and make leaders fix stalls. Put sponsorship in writing for mid-career women. Show your CFO the math: every prevented exit avoids 0.5–2× salary in replacement costs. Then sell it—diverse leadership teams are more likely to outperform and drive more innovation revenue. Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams are 39% more likely to financially outperform; ethnically diverse exec teams, ~39%. Diverse boards show similar effects (gender +27% likelihood, ethnic +13%). Correlation isn’t causation, but it’s large, persistent, and growing.
Also, big buyers have supplier-diversity expectations baked into procurement; align or lose points. This isn’t about being “woke.” It’s about winning bids, shipping work, and keeping margin. Diversity isn’t stalling—it’s draining capacity and driving up costs if you ignore it.