Thelander PC Digest: March 2025
Gender Pay Gap Tightens in Startups’ C-Suites
Welcome back to the Thelander Digest. Since March is Women’s History Month, we dug into our private company dataset to look at how the representation of female C-Suite executives at private companies has changed YoY and what progress has been made in closing the gender pay gap between men and women at the highest levels.
Here’s what we found:
- In 2024, women account for a larger percentage of C-Suite executives at private companies than they did in 2020.
- The biggest gains were among Chief Customer Officers, Chief Strategy Officers, Chief Marketing Officers and CEOs.
- What’s more, female chiefs are starting to out-earn their male peers at companies with less than $90 Million in total financing raised to date.
At the median, female CEOs, CFOs, CTOs and Chief Scientific Officers, earn the same total cash or more as their male counterparts, representing significant jumps from 2020.
When looking at founder and non-founder CEOs of companies with less than $15 Million in total financing, female CEOs earn 6% less in total cash than their male counterparts.
In both cases, female founder and non-founder CEOs earn less equity than their male peers, a difference of over 2%.
At later stage companies ($90 Million+ in total financing), female founder and non-founder CEOs are nearly at parity with their male counterparts, earning a difference of less than $2,000 at the median.
However, male founder and non-founder CEOs continue to out-earn women when it comes to equity, with male founder CEOS earning more than a percentage more than female founder CEOs. When you look at top performing CEOs, those within the 75th percentile, at later stage companies, base pay for male CEOs has remained steady over the past four years while female CEOs have experience more volatility, demonstrating continued inconsistencies in pay for female founders.
What’s the takeaway? The gender pay gap is narrowing among chief executives of privately held companies. However, female representation is low overall.
We encourage you to participate in the Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey to trial the online platform and see how your base salaries, bonuses, annual cash, founder and non-founder equity, option pool, non-investor board comp and more compare to market. If you’d like to learn more about Thelander or discuss our consulting services, you can email or call us: +1.305.793.8605