Female leaders to know: women changing UK workplaces
Ask most people to name a famous business leader and the same handful of men come up. That is not because women have not run things. It is because their names travel less far. So this is a short, deliberate correction: a look at female leaders who have changed how UK workplaces run, and what their very different routes to the top can teach the rest of us.
These are not the only women worth knowing, and a list is always a starting point rather than a verdict. But each of them opened a door that was shut before, and each one made the next woman’s path a little more believable.
Why female leaders still matter as a story
Representation at the top of UK business is improving, slowly. The FTSE Women Leaders Review, the government-backed body that tracks gender balance in Britain’s largest listed companies, set a target of 40 per cent women on FTSE 350 boards, and that threshold has broadly been met across board seats. That is real progress worth naming.
The picture thins out fast at the very top. Fewer than one in ten FTSE 100 chief executives are women, according to the same FTSE Women Leaders Review. Boards have opened up faster than the roles that actually run companies, which is why the women below still stand out. When you can count the female chief executives of Britain’s biggest firms on your fingers, each one carries more weight than she should have to.
Visible female leaders change what younger women think is possible for them. That is the quiet mechanism behind every profile here.
Six female leaders who changed UK workplaces
1. Emma Walmsley, who ran a global pharma giant
When Emma Walmsley became chief executive of GSK in 2017, she was the first woman to lead a top-tier global pharmaceutical company. She had come up through consumer healthcare rather than the lab, which drew plenty of doubt at the time. She reshaped the business around vaccines and medicines anyway. Her path is a useful reminder that leaders do not have to arrive by the obvious route.
2. Dame Stephanie Shirley, who built a tech firm for women
Long before anyone talked about women in tech as a movement, Dame Stephanie Shirley founded a software company in the 1960s staffed almost entirely by women working from home, many of them mothers who had been pushed out of conventional jobs. She signed her early business letters “Steve” to get past the men who would not reply to a woman. She later gave away most of her fortune. Her story is proof that flexible, women-first working is not a new idea, just a long-ignored one.
3. Dame Inga Beale, who opened up a 300-year-old institution
Dame Inga Beale became the first woman to lead Lloyd’s of London in 2014, in the nearly 330 years the insurance market had existed. She was open about being bisexual and pushed hard on inclusion inside one of the City’s most traditional corners. Changing an institution that old is slow, unglamorous work, and she did it in full view.
4. Anne Boden, who founded a bank from scratch
Anne Boden founded Starling Bank, becoming one of very few women to build a UK bank from the ground up. She has written candidly about raising money as a female founder in finance, a field where women still receive a tiny share of venture funding. Her example matters most to women who are not looking to climb an existing ladder but to build a new one.
5. Baroness Karren Brady, who led in a room full of men
Karren Brady made her name running a football club in her twenties, one of the most male-dominated corners of British business, and went on to a long career across sport, media and the boardroom. She has been a consistent public voice on maternity rights and women at work. Leading credibly in rooms that were not built for you is its own kind of achievement.
6. Dame Carolyn McCall, who ran FTSE companies back to back
Dame Carolyn McCall has led major listed British companies including easyJet and ITV, moving between very different industries at the highest level. That kind of repeat appointment quietly does something important: it makes a woman running a FTSE company look ordinary rather than exceptional, which is exactly the point.
What their paths have in common
Look across these six and a few patterns stand out.
They rarely followed a straight line. Consumer marketing to pharma, insurance underwriting to the top of Lloyd’s, a corporate career to founding a bank. The tidy, linear CV is not how most of them got there, which should reassure anyone whose own path has twists in it.
They were often first, and being first is heavy. Being the only woman in the room, or the first in three centuries, means carrying extra scrutiny with no map. Naming that cost is not complaining, it is honesty about what these roles actually asked.
They made room behind them. Mentoring, campaigning, philanthropy, plain visibility. The best female leaders do not pull the ladder up. If you want to understand how supportive an employer really is, our guide to the best UK companies for women is a good place to start, and our piece on careers for women looks at how to find a place where you can actually rise.
How to learn from female leaders without copying them
You do not become a leader by imitating one. The useful move is to borrow the principle, not the biography.
Notice which of these women resonates and ask why. If it is Anne Boden, maybe you are a builder. If it is Dame Carolyn McCall, maybe you are drawn to steady stewardship across different worlds. That instinct is data about you.
Find people slightly ahead of you, not just the household names. A mentor two rungs up will teach you more this year than any famous chief executive. If you are weighing formal support, our look at whether executive coaching for women is worth it walks through the honest trade-offs.
And treat visibility as part of the job. Every woman here got comfortable being seen, on stage, in print, in the room. That is uncomfortable for a lot of us and worth practising anyway.
Frequently asked questions
Who are some of the most influential female leaders in the UK?
Names that come up often include Emma Walmsley, who led GSK as the first woman to run a top-tier global pharmaceutical company, Dame Inga Beale, the first woman to lead Lloyd’s of London, and Anne Boden, founder of Starling Bank. Each opened a door in a different industry.
How many FTSE 100 companies are led by women?
Fewer than one in ten FTSE 100 chief executives are women, according to the FTSE Women Leaders Review. Representation on boards is much stronger, at around 40 per cent, but the very top jobs remain heavily male.
Why does having female leaders matter?
Visible female leaders widen what younger women believe is possible for them, and mixed leadership teams bring a broader range of experience to decisions. Role models change ambition, which is why naming these women still counts.
How can I become a leader in my field?
There is no single route. The women here arrived through very different paths, so focus on building real expertise, finding mentors slightly ahead of you, getting comfortable being visible, and choosing employers that genuinely back women. Our careers guide is a practical starting point.
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