Executive summary. Drawing on CarringtonCrisp’s What Women Want global study, this article explores the role executive education can play in accelerating women’s career progression. While employers widely acknowledge historic inequalities and express confidence in their organisational support, women continue to experience structural barriers, including cost, access to networks, caregiving responsibilities and organisational culture. The research highlights both the measurable career benefits of executive education and the need for business schools and employers to work together to create flexible, affordable pathways, stronger evidence of impact and systemic change that enables women’s leadership development to translate into long-term organisational progress.

Key takeaways

• Executive education can significantly strengthen women’s confidence, leadership readiness, career progression and salary outcomes.
• A perception gap exists: employers often believe they provide sufficient support, while women continue to face structural and financial barriers to participation.
• Business schools need to build flexible learning pathways, supportive organisational systems, not just alumni networks and evidence of impact to accelerate women’s advancement into senior leadership.

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Andrew Crisp and Elena Liquete from CarringtonCrisp examine the potential and impact of executive education on women’s careers, and what business schools can do to grow that impact.

For centuries, societies have asked the same question:  What do women want?  Chaucer, writing his tale of the Wife of Bath in the fifteenth century, had a knight spend a year trying to find the answer.  More recently, Mel Gibson had a go at answering the same question in the 2020 movie of the same name!

However, a 2023 study by the World Economic Forum found that only 14 countries grant women full equal rights. When a large part of the working population is held back, perhaps it’s not a surprise that productivity isn’t growing in the way governments want.

The most recent OECD Compendium of Productivity Indicators 2025 suggests problems for many economies in making the most of those in work, stating “The average labour productivity of G7 countries is estimated to have declined slightly (- 0.3%)”, adding “Labour productivity growth is estimated to have remained weak across the OECD in 2024 .”

Despite decades of progress, women remain underrepresented in leadership positions across most sectors and regions. Persistent barriers, such as limited access to senior networks, work-life imbalance, a lack of flexible career pathways and cultural expectations, continue to slow women’s career progression. Against this background, executive and business education has the potential to unlock opportunities, build confidence and accelerate women’s professional advancement.

In the early summer of 2025, CarringtonCrisp undertook the What Women Want global study, in partnership with leading business schools:  Bentley University, Cambridge Judge Business School, EDHEC, ESADE, IE Business School, IMD, Imperial College, London Business School, Michigan Ross, Monash Business School, Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin and UNSW Business School/AGSM.

The research draws on two global surveys conducted in May 2025: one with over 5,000 women aged 25–55 from 26 countries and the other with more than 500 employers from 28 countries. In addition, 25 in-depth interviews were conducted with women who were at different career stages, and 10 employers.

Despite clear progress for women at work, there seems to remain a disconnect between where employers think they are and where women report they are. Almost seven out of ten employers (69%) believe they already do enough to support women’s career advancement, and 52% agree that the current status of women in leadership in their sector is acceptable and requires no further action. Only 9% of employers report having more than 50% women in their senior leadership, despite claiming supportive cultures.

Employers recognise the importance of early action: 77% agree that more interventions earlier in women’s careers would create a larger talent pool later for senior positions. Yet as logical as this is, it doesn’t seem to be happening.  Almost a third of employers (32%) acknowledge challenges in building a pipeline of future talent.

There is also a gap between recognising the issue and taking meaningful action. While 71% of employers agree that women have historically been discriminated against in employment, 69% believe their organisation does enough to support women’s career advancement, and 80% suggest that their organisational culture actively supports gender equality in leadership.

While employers recognise a historic problem and believe they are working to overcome that problem, progress appears to be much slower than many believe. One employer highlighted the systemic nature of the challenge, arguing that focusing solely on women’s development is insufficient:

“… after women come back from a programme, they might feel better themselves, they might have become more confident and self-assured and they may come back with a kind of renewed energy to deal with males in a more constructive way and to kind of navigate around the barriers. But then they would slowly fall back into the day job because nothing really changed around them. If the whole system is working against you, it’s quite difficult to truly make a difference unless the business is behind you and rooting for you.”

Despite mixed views on the scale of the challenge and the effectiveness of their efforts, employers and women do align on several workplace barriers. A fifth of women suggest a lack of management support is a barrier to their career progression, while 30% of employers identify a lack of senior leadership support.

Women considering future study to support their careers prefer blended learning formats over all other options (34%). More than three-quarters of employers (76%) agree that executive education needs flexible options for women, and 41% see blended learning as most effective for overcoming barriers.

However, women and employers diverge in what they believe prevents women from accessing learning and development. Women identify cost as the primary obstacle, while employers point to family responsibilities. Just under a quarter of women who might undertake further learning (24%) cite caregiving responsibilities as a barrier to learning, compared with 41% of employers who hold this perception. Some employers may be attributing women’s lower participation to personal choices rather than structural and financial constraints that could be addressed.

Cost in part is also driving interest in short courses that perhaps provide an immediate career boost (possibly with an accompanying pay increase), and for courses delivered flexibly that don’t involve giving up a job; 43% of prospective women learners cite cost as a barrier to study, while 51% cite it as the main reason for rejecting study.

Women are also clear about the impact of family responsibilities on their working lives, including childcare and caring for elderly parents. This tension emerges early; even younger participants already see a future where they may be forced to choose between realising their ambitions and caregiving. One early-career woman expressed this anxiety clearly:

“Something that worries me is that after working so hard to do well in your studies, working hard at your job and then I see some of my friends in their early 30s who got married recently and they would like to have a family but they can’t, they have to stay in their jobs to gain experience … I don’t want to have to choose between my personal aspirations and my family.”

A senior executive with children spoke with conviction about the impossible trade-offs women face: “Being a mother, having a career, doing executive education … you can do two of those three, but you can’t do all three. There isn’t a right answer about which one you pick.” Some women thought the situation was improving: “Some fathers are getting more involved now, working condensed weeks or asking for time to attend school plays. We didn’t get that when I was starting out,” others believed not enough had changed. However, others didn’t see much change. As one senior executive and mother of two put it:

“Your most important career choice is your choice of partner. When you wake up and the kids are sick, is it a ‘me’ problem or is it an ‘us’ problem? Do we both open our calendars and see what we can free up in our day, or is the assumption that I cancel everything and take care of the problem?”

And when women can’t access learning and development, the impact is clear; 37% believe that not pursuing further study negatively impacted their careers. Women who haven’t taken up executive education were more than twice as likely as those who did study to report receiving no employer support for study.

However, there is plenty of evidence of the impact that learning and development can have on women and their careers. Women report increased confidence (34%), involvement in significant projects (26%), and salary increases (26%) following periods of study, and 79% of employers acknowledge that executive education increases women’s leadership readiness. The vast majority of women (81%) and employers (80%) believe business education can address workplace challenges.

Business schools have a crucial role to play in expanding access to executive education for women.  They need to raise awareness, educate, advocate and, importantly, evidence impact.  Working with employers to measure and demonstrate impact of their provision will encourage more individuals and employers to engage, but more will also need to be done to build flexible and affordable pathways, create inclusive learning environments, build strong ‘alumni’ networks and advocate for systemic change with employers.

In some cases, that may mean offering women-only programmes, although views on their value differ. Women who have experienced them often highlight the safe environments these programmes create: “I think they bring an openness and honesty that perhaps you wouldn’t have had if we had men in the room.” Others, however, question whether such initiatives reach the people who most need to change. As one woman who had not attended these programmes noted, it risks “preaching to the converted”, arguing that men should also be part of the conversation.

ESADE’s Promociona, a modular programme for senior women led by the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organisations (CEOE) and ESADE is perhaps a good example of a woman-focused approach. The programme takes a holistic approach to learning, combining academic and experiential elements. It is delivered in a blended format, with three one-week in-person modules, as well as online activities, events and networking.

Schools also need to consider the relevance of their programmes for different audiences. An SME owner said: “I don’t want to be learning from a textbook from years ago,” highlighting a recurring challenge for business schools – the need to balance rigorous, research-based teaching with content and approaches that are current, practical and directly relevant to the fast-changing demands of the workplace.

Support for women’s career growth extends beyond the programme itself. While many will become alumni of an institution, smaller networks of fellow women participants are often highlighted as valuable, allowing informal learning to continue and providing support from others facing similar professional challenges.

Business schools also have a role in helping employers strengthen their internal systems. Many organisations lack mechanisms to track or evaluate the career outcomes of executive education participants or the broader impact on their operations. Without this evidence, it is difficult to justify investment, identify what works or ensure that executive education is effectively supporting women’s career advancement. Business schools can put in place systems to help employers gather such important data, creating virtuous circles that feed into future investment in women’s careers.

Although some employers are not yet making full use of the talent within their organisations, there are signs of progress.  Already, 43% of employers have specific leadership or learning and development initiatives targeted at women, while a further 16% are developing such initiatives. Also, 57% have made a strategic commitment to sponsor women specifically for executive education programmes, driven to enhance the performance of high-potential female employees and to grow diversity among senior leadership.

The opportunity to unlock women’s full potential and have them contribute to more dynamic leadership in organisations around the world is shared by women and employers.  There is a broad consensus that executive education works. However, cost, time and organisational culture still dictate who actually benefits. Bridging the perception gap, so that organisational intent is matched by day-to-day support along with focused interventions from business schools, will unlock value and accelerate progress towards stronger senior leadership and higher productivity in business.

A free summary of the report can be downloaded at: https://www.carringtoncrisp.com/intelligence/what-women-want/