Diversity gaps persist among the Top 100 C-suites

The senior ranks of the Washington Technology Top 100 companies continue to be dominated by while male executives.

In looking at the racial and gender diversity in the Top 100's C-suites, we found the number of Black executives lags far behind their representation in the general population.

By scouring company webpages, we found that 57 companies have no Black male or female executives posted on their leadership pages. When breaking it down by gender, 70 had no Black male executives and 80 had no female Black executives.

Five companies had more than one Black male executive. Three had more than one Black female executive.

Out of the 1,237 executives we identified, there were 38 Black male executives and 23 Black female executives for a total of 61. Black executives represent 4.9% of all executives we identified, which breaks up into Black males at 3% and Black females at 1.9%.

Three companies have a Black CEO or chair – Science Applications International Corp. led by Toni Townes-Whitley; Iron Bow Technologies led by Rene LaVigne; and World Wide Technologies with founder and Chair Dave Steward.

There are 34 companies on the Top 100 that have no ethnic minorities in their senior ranks and five companies with no women in those roles.

Here is the gender breakdown:

• 871 male executives
• 366 female executives
• 84 male CEOs
• 18 female CEOs – there are two companies with male CEOs that also list a woman as a chair and/or founder.
• 6 companies have more female executives than males
• 1 company has an even split of male and female executives

For other minority groups, we found 119 executives that were either Hispanic, Asian, or another non-white ethnicity. The three Alaska Native and tribally owned businesses on the Top 100 each have several Native American executives.

How does this year compare to our first analysis in 2020?

Percentage-wise, there are more female executives today. In 2020, women held 22.6% of the positions. Today the percentage is 29.6%

As far as Black executives in 2020, we found that 5.6% of Top 100 executives were Black compared to 4.9% in 2024. One caveat here is that we’ve gotten better at identifying executives overall. In 2020, we identified 680 executives and that number is 1,237 today.

In 2021, we identified 1,234 executives and the percentage of Black executives was 5.6%. The overall U.S. population is 12.4% Black.

We’ve seen a bump up in the number of women executives over the past five years, but the number of Black executives remains dismal.

Many of the Top 100 companies include a C-level executive with responsibility for diversity, equity and inclusion. They also tout programs to bring more underrepresented groups onto their company rolls through internship programs and even partnerships with historically Black universities and colleges.

One school of thought is that these types of programs will build a pipeline for senior positions in the future.

But with little positive movement over the past five years, it seems that something more intentional needs to be put in place.