A few days ago, Børsen published its list of the Top 1000 largest companies in Denmark. In collaboration with Børsen, Denominator conducted a comprehensive diversity analysis of those firms, as a natural extension of our earlier Top 100 Diversity Leaders study. While the focus is Denmark, the findings offer insight into how leading Nordic companies compare on gender diversity, and how that performance aligns with broader European trends.
Denmark’s Leadership Landscape: Gaps at the Top
One of the key results from the Top 1000 analysis is how male names dominate the ranks of board membership: the first woman’s name appears only at position 36 among the most common board-member names. The first 35 names are all male, underlining how naming conventions still reflect male prevalence.
This insight follows a similar trend in the US, where some of the largest firms in the United States, represented in the S&P500 index, have more board members and executives call Jhon, David and Michael than all Asian, Black, and Hispanic women executives and board members combined.
This naming pattern mirrors the structural gender imbalance in leadership. Across the Top 1000 largest firms in Denmark, women account for about 21 % of board seats, while in executive management the share is 10 %, and among CEOs it is 9 %.
When looking at companies with zero women in their leadership, 78 % of these companies have zero women in their executive teams.
Cognitive psychologist and PhD in cross-cultural diversity, Christina Lundsgaard Ottsen, points out that in Denmark “board recruitment is often still characterized by informal networks and less transparency.” She also notes that Denmark’s current numbers echo what the UK saw roughly a decade ago in terms of female representation at leadership levels. In that light, the article highlights discomfiting that progress in Denmark appears to fall behind what many would expect of a Nordic country.
How do the Top 1000 compared to the Top 100 diversity leaders?
In the Top 100 Diversity Leaders ranking, boards averaged about 31 % women, that is over 47% higher than in the top 1000. Meanwhile, for Denmark’s listed heavyweights (the C25), board representation is around 44 %, that is almost a 110% more than in the top 1000. On the executive side, C25 firms tend toward 22 % women presence, and top 100 towards 21% women presence, substantially higher than the 10 % seen in the broader Top 1000 sample.
Interestingly, when looking at the CEO level, while the top 100 firms have fewer women CEOs (5 % vs 9 % in Top 1000), the top 100 tend to perform better in board representation and overall gender balance.
Conclusion
Robust data underpins meaningful progress. Without a factual baseline, companies cannot reliably assess where they stand or what challenges must be addressed. Data provides a clear comparative framework, deepens understanding of internal performance, and highlights real opportunities for change and improvement. That is precisely why the collaboration between Børsen and Denominator, extending our earlier Top 100 Diversity Leaders study, is so important.
This broader analysis of Denmark’s Top 1000 firms offers a panoramic view of gender diversity in leadership roles, and by placing it in the context with the Top 100 and the C25, we gain perspective on structural patterns and variation across company size, visibility, and governance frameworks.
If you want to know more about the list and Denominator’s data, feel free to reach out to Emma Helbo.
Børsen Top 1000 list: https://borsen.dk/top1000
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