If 2025 proved anything, it is that women’s advancement is no longer held back by lack of intent. The intent is everywhere. What remains uneven is the system behind it.
Across technology, telecom and digital-heavy industries, representation improved, internal mobility widened and more women stepped into roles once viewed as “male-default.” But beneath these gains sits a harder truth: the architecture of leadership still tilts away from women, especially at mid-career.
Priyanka Anand, Vice President and Head of HR for Southeast Asia, Oceania and India at Ericsson, describes 2025 as the year in which the sector “moved beyond good intent.” Public diversity targets, accountability frameworks and data-backed talent programs created momentum, she said — not by magic, but by measurable discipline.
At Ericsson, 45% of roles are now filled internally, a structural shift that creates more predictable pathways into leadership. Yet Anand is clear: progress is real, but uneven. “We have momentum, but we still have ground to cover,” she said, pointing to persistent mid-career exits and thin representation in technical pipelines.
We also spoke to Abira Bhattacharjee, CHRO of Embee Software, who describes 2025’s gains as “visible progress, but not yet lasting progress.”
The shift she observed was qualitative, not merely numerical. Women led digital transformation initiatives, cybersecurity rollouts, AI skilling programmes and enterprise-wide people strategies. More first-time women CXOs entered the C-suite across sectors. And women managed large delivery and operations teams of 400–1,000 people, challenging assumptions about who leads at scale.
Despite this progress, the year’s most telling data point remains unchanged: the leadership pipeline narrows long before women reach the C-suite.
The “broken rung” — the sharp drop at first-level management — still defines women’s workplace experience. McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2025 report reiterates it; Great Place to Work data echoes it: women make up around 26% of the workforce in many organisations but only around 8% of CEOs.
And the reasons are stubbornly structural.
Rigid career paths. Roles requiring constant physical presence or mobility. Limited access to high-visibility assignments. Assumptions about women’s availability. Bias — not loud, but ambient — that shapes who is considered “ready.”
Bhattacharjee calls it the “invisible middle,” the quiet zone where many women exit. Caregiving responsibilities, inflexible roles and the confidence gap all converge mid-career. “Women wait until they feel 100% ready before applying for a stretch role,” she said. “Men apply at 60%. Organisations need to notice that.”
Anand adds that these barriers are entirely addressable — if organisations treat inclusion as design, not damage control.
What women brought to leadership in 2025
This year clarified something many leaders have long argued: empathy is not the opposite of performance. It is a driver of it.
At Embee Software, Bhattacharjee said women-led teams recorded stronger engagement and customer satisfaction scores. Women leaders also excelled at cross-functional alignment, often acting as connective tissue across teams — a critical skill in a year defined by rapid digital transition.
Anand highlighted clarity of communication, inclusive culture-building and adaptability as the most consequential behaviours women brought to their organisations. These are not soft qualities; they are operational ones.
Both leaders were clear about which interventions delivered real movement — and which did not.
What worked
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Structured mobility frameworks
Increased internal movement pushed more women into critical roles. -
Leadership development paired with business exposure
Programmes like Ericsson’s ASPIRE and ASCENT moved women from early/mid career into leadership tracks with greater predictability. -
Experiential inclusion learning
Training that reduced informal barriers, rather than simply teaching inclusive language. -
Mentorship that is intentional, not ceremonial
Embee’s 1:1 high-potential mentorships created visibility and clarity of pathway. -
Flexibility that is actually practised
Not a policy, but a norm — making return from career breaks structurally possible. -
Linking DEI outcomes to leadership KPIs
The moment inclusion affects performance reviews, it stops being optional.
What didn’t work
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Treating DEI as a programme rather than an operating principle.
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Assuming hybrid work automatically benefits women — when visibility still governs promotions.
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Ignoring the post-parenthood leadership gap — where too many careers quietly stall.
What 2026 demands
If 2025 was a year of visible effort, 2026 must be a year of structural courage.
Anand believes for skills-based talent practices, transparent mobility, stronger manager capability and flexible leadership pathways as essentials, not enhancements.
Meanwhile, Bhattacharjee says: “2026 should be the year of sponsorship over support. Women don’t just need encouragement. They need leaders who open doors.”
She ends on a line that captures the shift the industry still resists:
“The next phase of progress won’t come from policies, it’ll come from accountability. When leaders start owning inclusion like they own revenue, that’s when true gender balance will happen.”
It is a fitting conclusion to a year where progress was real — but not yet irreversible!