The Business of Tech, the podcast, website, and YouTube show created by technology services expert and analyst Dave Sobel, recently published the results from its Q4 2022 survey. The show’s ninth quarterly report tracked 3,925 leaders from across 301 companies to take a deeper look at the race and gender of leaders delivering IT services. As a whole, the industry’s leadership remains steadfastly White (88.92 percent) and Male (79.01 percent) with little movement toward documented inclusion.

The data was collected by monitoring company leadership pages and categorizing individuals as White, Black, or Non-White, as well as Male or Female. Key findings include:

• Slightly fewer White leaders: Between Q3 2022 and Q4 2022, the proportion of White leaders dropped from 89.19% to 88.92%, a total decrease of 1.5 percentage points. Yet when looking at change from Q4 2020 (84.49%) to now, White leadership increased overall by 4.7%.
  
• Male leadership persists: The percentage of male leaders this quarter (78.60%) remained relatively unchanged compared to the last quarter’s 79.12%. However, compared to Q4 2020 which had 81.42% male leaders, the overall trend has been positive for women leadership.
  
• Inconsistent Black leadership improvement: Q3 2022 to Q4 2022 saw an overall increase in Black leadership of half a percentage point, with the figure now reaching 2.14%. Yet when looking at Black IT leaders specifically at Fortune 1000 companies, the proportion this quarter (2.27%) is a decrease from Q2 2022 (2.64%) and Q3 2022 (2.62%).

“I started creating these reports in September of 2020 to investigate both what’s missing from the DEI conversation and how diverse leadership contributes to business outcomes,” said David Sobel, the host, creator, and producer of The Business of Tech Podcast. “It’s clear that there’s a gap between the desire to improve diversity and what’s happening on the ground – to me, that oversight is a missed opportunity on multiple fronts.”

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