Gender diversity in corporate leadership is no longer a peripheral ESG theme — it is increasingly linked to measurable business outcomes. As regulatory pressure builds and investor focus sharpens, the question is shifting from whether female representation matters to how it can be systematically captured and reflected in investment strategies.
Against this backdrop, STOXX has introduced the DAX® Women Leadership index. Designed to identify German companies with the highest proportion of women at the executive and supervisory level, the index offers investors a transparent and rules-based way to incorporate this dimension into portfolio construction.
Diversity effect
An extensive body of literature supports the positive relationship between women in corporate management and better firm performance.
One study from 2012 argued that female representation in top ranks brings informational and social diversity benefits, enriches the behaviors of all managers and motivates women in middle management.[1] An analysis from BlackRock in 2023 showed that companies with women CEOs have “almost consistently” outperformed businesses run by men over the past decade.[2]
“Research increasingly shows that female representation at the board level drives real corporate performance — it’s not simply a ‘nice-to-have’,” said Veronika Kylburg, Head of Global Benchmarks DAX at STOXX. “The new DAX Women Leadership index offers a systematic, transparent benchmark for identifying the German companies leading on gender diversity.”
Benefits of female leadership are said to range from a healthier workplace environment to better family-friendly policies, contributing positively to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 — Gender equality. The percentage of senior roles held by women in Germany has significantly increased following legislation that established female quotas for supervisory boards (2016) and for management boards (2021).[3]
Selection process
The DAX Women Leadership index selects the 20 companies from the broad HDAX® benchmark with the highest ratio of women in executive positions and in the supervisory board (Figure 1).
The selection is based on a women leadership score, calculated as the simple average of the percentage of women in executive roles and the percentage of female members in the supervisory board as identified by ISS Sustainability Solutions.
Figure 1: Index selection process
Stewardship tool
For Saumya Mehrotra, Vice President for Index Product Management at STOXX, the DAX Women Leadership index can also serve as a practical stewardship tool for investors.
“The index gives investors a transparent mechanism to align capital allocation with engagement priorities, and a structured reference point for engagement conversations,” said Mehrotra, “supporting constructive dialogue with companies while signaling that sustained progress matters for long‑term inclusion.”
Performance
In backtested data between March 2018 and April 2026, the DAX Women Leadership outperformed the DAX® benchmark by an annualized 3 percentage points, and the HDAX by 3.3 percentage points (Figure 2).[4] Volatility was only slightly higher for the Women Leadership strategy over the period.
Figure 2: Risk-return metrics
Figure 3 shows the comparative performance for the three indices in gross returns.
Figure 3: Index performance
Figure 4 shows the top ten holdings in the DAX Women Leadership index, as well as the HDAX and DAX benchmarks, alongside their weightings.
Figure 4: Top ten holdings
A growing offering
The DAX Women Leadership is the newest member in a growing DAX family that gives investors a comprehensive set of index tools and trading possibilities to target specific exposures across the German market and beyond. Its methodology can be tailored to take into account the specific responsible-investing frameworks of users.
The index aims to serve as both an investable benchmark and an engagement tool for investors with responsible mandates — advancing gender diversity while capturing any performance benefits associated with it.
As demand grows for strategies that combine financial performance with structural trends in corporate behavior, indices such as the DAX Women Leadership will play an increasingly important role. Not only as benchmarks, but as tools to support more informed and accountable investment decisions.
[1] Dezso, Gaddis-Ross, “Does female representation in top management improve firm performance? A panel data investigation,” Strategic Management Journal: Volume 33, Issue 9.
[2] BlackRock, “Lifting financial performance by investing in women,” November 2023.
[3] Reuters, “German cabinet agrees quota for women on company boards,” January 6, 2021.
[4] Price returns.