General Motors (GM) recently appointed Dhivya Suryadevara as its Chief Financial Officer, effective September 1st. The news made many headlines because, in a position that has long been dominated by men, Suryadevara will be the first female CFO at GM. She joins GM’s current female Chief Executive Officer Mary T. Barra, putting General Motors at the forefront of companies with women currently sitting in both the CEO and CFO positions.
A woman joining the ranks of the C-suite is generally highly publicized. Additionally, a number of women in C-suite positions are quite high-profile, such as Meg Whitman and Ursula Burns. Whitman is famous for turning eBay into a billion dollar company when she served as CEO. Burns, on the other hand, made strides becoming the first African-American female CEO at Xerox—a Fortune 500 company. A female CEO and CFO tandem in these highly sought-after positions may seem unlikely at times. Highly sought after C-suite positions are—and have historically been—dominated by men. Equilar conducted a study to look at the gender make-up of the CEO and CFO positions at Equilar 500 companies in recent years.