Aon Study:Systemic Barriers Limit Women’s Progress to Senior Leadership Roles

New Delhi:  Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm, today released findings from its study, Gender and Leadership at India Inc, revealing that the leadership gap in corporate India is driven less by women’s ambition and more by how leadership opportunities are structured and allocated.

Based on a survey of 1,500 leaders, including over 400 women across over 30 cities in India, the study provides a comprehensive view at how women and men progress through the leadership pipeline and identifies the structural barriers that limit women’s advancement to senior roles.

Comparable ambition, different outcomes

The research shows that women and men demonstrate comparable levels of ambition and similar core career drivers, such as purpose, growth and leadership culture. However, when the data is segmented by age, differences are revealed, with seniority emerging as a particularly significant factor.

Men aged 50+ in leadership roles are most likely to have built their careers within a single organisation, supported by systems that provide clearer career paths, equitable promotion processes and access to high-impact roles. By contrast, women aged 50+ in leadership roles are more likely to have advanced by moving between organisations, relying on a mix of internal and external opportunities.

The study found that by age 50, only 20 percent of women advanced within the same organisation, compared with 49 percent of men. Women also reported a higher number of total career transitions than men (4.13 versus 3.17). As women’s careers start out, they rely on clarity and fairness but as formal advancement pathways and processes become less accessible for them, they increasingly rely on supportive managers and organisational culture.

Limited access to critical core and commercial experience

A key driver of women’s under-representation in senior leadership roles is limited access to key core and commercial roles that accelerate readiness for top positions. Nearly half (49 percent) of women leaders work in enabling functions, compared with 37 percent of men, while men are more likely to hold core business and revenue‑generating roles. Among leaders under 35, 38 percent of women are in enabling roles compared with 22 percent of men, a 16‑point gap. While this gap narrows later in careers, the findings suggest that many women who eventually reach senior levels have had to move out of enabling functions and into more core roles over time.

The sharpest experience gaps are in P&L responsibility and sales roles, widely regarded as stepping stones to senior leadership. The study found that 68 percent of women, versus 91 percent of men, have P&L experience, and just 45 percent of women have held sales roles, versus 90 percent of men.

“The data suggests that India does not have a shortage of capable women; it has a leadership design issue,” said Nitin Sethi, head of Talent Solutions, India for Aon. “Organisations cannot expect different outcomes if the most impactful P&L and high‑stakes roles continue to be filled using existing practices. If businesses are serious about sustainable growth, they need to make the placement of women in these core roles a deliberate and visible priority.”

Perception gaps undermine trust in systems

Although many organisational policies are described as gender‑neutral, they are not always experienced as such. Men consistently report higher perceptions of fairness in pay and promotion decisions than women. While most leaders say their teams value diversity, only 65 percent of women (vs 84 percent of men) believe leadership decisions are unbiased.

This 19-point gap is the clearest signal of structural doubt. At the same time, 34 percent of women rated action against gender bias as average or not up-to the mark in their current organisations versus 17 percent of men reflecting lower trust among women that organisations will act on gender bias.

“We see a clear disconnect between how systems are described and how they are experienced,” said Shilpa Khanna, advisory leader for Talent Solutions in India for Aon and lead author of the study. “When systems don’t feel fair, women are less likely to view stretch roles or risk-taking moves as worthwhile. Addressing this trust gap requires leaders to redesign how key decisions are made, communicated and explained.”