As of early April 2025, the representation of women on supervisory boards in the private sector has reached 37.5%, nearly double the 19.9% recorded a decade ago, while public companies have seen a rise to 38.9%, up from 24.1% in 2015.

The initial Leadership Positions Act, which came into effect on January 1, 2016, aimed to increase the number of women in leadership roles across both private and public sectors by instituting a 30% quota for new appointments to supervisory boards of publicly traded and co-determined companies.

Fidar President Anja Seng stressed that without legal mandates, progress in gender representation would have been minimal, highlighting the need for ongoing legal pressure to achieve parity in leadership roles.

Currently, the supervisory board quota applies to only 100 companies, with the minimum representation requirement affecting 61 private sector companies and 43 federal entities.

Seng advocates for extending gender quotas to all publicly listed companies and those with over 500 employees, emphasizing that having women in leadership positions should become the standard.

Fidar's 'Woman on Board Index' tracks gender diversity across 160 companies listed in the DAX, MDAX, and SDAX indices, as well as 19 other publicly traded and co-determined firms, while the 'Public Women-on-Board Index' monitors 261 public companies.

Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Lisa Paus, credited the Leadership Positions Act with significantly impacting gender representation, successfully achieving a target of 30% female representation on the supervisory boards of about 100 large companies in Germany.

The second Leadership Positions Act, which took effect in summer 2022, introduced additional requirements, mandating that companies with boards of more than three members include at least one woman in their leadership team.