When I think about my community, the LGBTQIA+ community, I think about how far we’ve come in the past 20 years since I came out. The victories that we’ve won to secure our human rights as a society. But where we continue to lag behind is at the table of corporate Canada. In the annual report by The Prosperity Project women continue to represent about one-third of corporate director roles (34.8%) and just under one-third of executive officer roles (32.3%), which are similar results to the 2022 report (34.2% and 29.2%, respectively).
However there is a serious underrepresentation of women with at least one intersecting identity (racialized, Indigenous, living with disabilities, 2SLGBTQIA+) in senior leadership roles. Women of colour hold 9.4% (up from 6.2% last year) of board, executive and pipeline positions collectively, with Black women, Indigenous women, women with disabilities and 2SLGBTQIA+ women each holding 1.5% or less of senior leadership and pipeline positions, respectively.
As a queer woman in financial services I long for the day when I’m no longer the only queer woman walking into a meeting room. 🌈
