America hit a milestone in 2016: The most female CEOs ever. There are now 27 women at the helm of S&P; 500 companies.
The good news is it's a new record for women in business, according to S&P; Global Market Intelligence. It's also 22% more -- a big jump -- from last year, when only 22 women led S&P; 500 companies.
But women still have a long way to go.
Females lead only 27 out of 500 (or just 5.4%) of America's largest publicly traded companies (known as the S&P; 500). And that's after all the efforts to draw attention to the gender gap and promote female leaders by celebrities like Beyonce and Lena Dunham and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" movement.
"The overall numbers are up, but they're still quite small," says Pavle Sabic, a director at S&P; Global Market Intelligence and author of a new study on the CEO Gender Gap in the U.S. and Europe.
Women now lead companies in just about all sectors. American females have made big gains in recent months in energy and utilities, sectors typically dominated by men.
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