Britain can congratulate itself on progress for women in business. Women now hold more than 42 per cent of board seats across FTSE 350 companies — a figure that would have seemed implausible when I began my career in banking.
But scratch the surface and the picture is less comfortable. Women account for just 8 per cent of chief executives in those same firms.
We have diversified oversight while leaving control largely untouched. That is not transformation; it is containment.
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Non-executive roles matter. But they are not the same as running a business: setting strategy, allocating capital, managing risk and leading thousands of people through economic and structural upheaval.
Confusing representation with authority allows firms to declare victory while avoiding the harder work. Diverse executive leadership is not a moral luxury. It is a commercial necessity.
The UK did not stumble into gender-balanced boards. Progress came because transparency was imposed, targets were set, and leaders were held to account by government and by society.
The FTSE Women Leaders Review inspired much of that change, which matters because further progress will not happen by goodwill alone.
As I take on the role of HM Treasury women in finance champion, two issues are increasingly obvious. First, we have not converted board-level representation into executive leadership at anything like the required pace.
Second, we risk repeating history as artificial intelligence reshapes the economy.
The uncomfortable truth is that talent does not rise by accident. Progress into senior roles requires disciplined succession planning: identifying high-potential women early, investing in them deliberately and ensuring they are visible where power is exercised.
This is where my focus as women in finance champion will be. Too often, firms rely on informal networks and outdated assumptions, then express surprise when the same profiles continue to emerge at the top.
This is exactly why the Women in Finance Charter matters. By encouraging firms to set public targets and report against them, the conversation moves from intent to impact. Measurement works. Accountability works. Without them, ambition evaporates.
Yet even as we address that gap, a new fault line is forming. A deliberate intervention is now needed to prevent AI from disproportionately disadvantaging women in finance.
Every chief executive is talking about AI; far fewer are treating inclusion as part of their strategic response. The leader who claims certainty about how AI will reshape their workforce is underestimating the scale of disruption ahead.
But uncertainty is not an excuse for inaction. AI will not be gender-neutral without intervention.
Women are more exposed to automation, with around 119,000 predominantly female clerical roles in tech, financial and professional services at risk, and are roughly 20 per cent less likely than men to use generative AI tools, even when access is equal. If these gaps persist as automation accelerates, women will fall further behind in progression, productivity and pay.
We have seen this movie before. During the last technological revolution not enough was done to encourage women to choose careers in Stem.
Even less was done to support those who did. Innovation suffered, productivity lagged, and we have spent years trying to repair the damage.
If AI leadership pipelines are allowed to narrow in the same way, the cost will again be economic as well as social.
The choices leaders make now will determine whether AI widens or narrows gender gaps. Inclusive AI strategies must be central to competitiveness in an economy defined by rapid technological change.
The UK has already proved that change is possible. Gender-balanced boards were once dismissed as unrealistic; today they are routine.
The real test is whether we are prepared to apply the same resolve to executive power ― and whether we are serious about who gets to lead in the age of AI.
Dame Debbie Crosbie, the chief executive of Nationwide Building Society, has been appointed as the new women in finance champion