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Balance sheets to boardrooms: Accelerating women leaders through P&L experience

By Cassandra Frangos
April 2025

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In my role as an adviser and leadership coach to succession candidates and other senior leaders, I don’t often work with women who are just starting out in their careers. But when I do meet young women starting out and they ask for advice, I always encourage them to seek out P&L experience as soon as they can. Ideally, you should consider positioning yourself for these roles within the first 7-10 years of your career. While this may seem early, it provides enough time to build experience, but not so much that you become known as only being able to work in one discipline.

In our recent survey of 2,300 senior women leaders around the world — more than half of whom are in the C-suite — 70 percent said they are either currently in a role with P&L responsibility or have been in the past. Nearly 60 percent had their first P&L role in the first 10 years of their career. Among women CEOs, 47 percent stated that actively seeking P&L roles significantly boosted their careers, while 15 percent of women leaders reported that not getting P&L experience early in their careers was a detriment.


P&L experience: A foundational element for women leaders

70%

of women we surveyed were either currently in a role with P&L responsibility or have been in the past

47%

of the women CEOs surveyed stated that actively seeking roles with P&L experience boosted their careers

15%

reported that not getting P&L experience early in their careers was a detriment

Market-facing P&L roles give leaders direct responsibility for leading people, strategy and operational priorities, as well as broader exposure to the business, more visibility and more risk. Leaders must be agile and able to “learn as you go.” Serving in a P&L role earlier in one’s career provides more runway to build the kinds of skills and experiences boards are looking for when selecting a CEO. And for women aspiring to top GM roles, it provides clear metrics on performance, placing them on a level playing field with men. As one leader told us, “If you have any sense that you might want to be on the CEO track, take a P&L role as early as possible.”


Broader business exposure and visibility

Direct responsibility for leading people, strategy and operational priorities

Fosters skills in budgeting, forecasting and financial analysis

Enhanced visibility within organizations

Challenges misconceptions and traditional requirements for GM promotions

When women don’t select these roles or aren’t offered them early on, they risk being categorized as a narrow expert who may not be agile enough to take on a different discipline later in their career.

These findings reinforce our data around the importance of sponsors and supportive supervisors — having someone in your corner to float your name for opportunities and encourage you to take a chance on them.

If we want to see more women CEOs, we’re going to need to actively get more women into P&L ownership roles earlier on in their careers. For this to happen, women will have to be willing to get out of their comfort zone and pursue these roles before they feel completely “ready.” Today’s leaders — men and women — will need to encourage women to seek these roles and advocate for them when opportunities arise. And companies must be willing to make appropriate bets on potential, selecting women for roles that represent a stretch, but where success is achievable.

Accelerating women in leadership: How far we can go?

The path forward for women is one of open-ended possibility when leaders and organizations take action. Organizations must diversify talent at key entry points to P&L GM roles:
  • Broaden the pipeline and emphasize leadership skills over just traditional career tracks
  • Identify women with GM potential early on and provide them with clear developmental pathways
  • Create mentoring and sponsorship systems and harness the power of female P&L role models

Discover research and insights to help accelerate progress. Read more

 

 

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© 2025 Spencer Stuart