Mentoring builds skill, but the evidence ties promotion more closely to sponsorship: a senior executive’s advocacy in discussions the candidate does not attend. Employers that assign sponsors, track results, and keep programs open to all are better placed to narrow the promotion gap.
Women hold 29% of C-suite roles at the companies in McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org’s 2025 Women in the Workplace study, a figure unchanged from 2024. The study draws on pipeline data from 124 organizations employing roughly three million people. At entry level, 31% of women report having a sponsor, against 45% of men.
The findings raise a question for corporate leaders: are they doing enough to turn women’s talent into advancement? Mentoring helps employees develop skills and navigate their careers. Sponsorship goes further: a senior leader advocates for an employee in promotion discussions and helps secure career-building opportunities. Research associates sponsorship with higher promotion rates, making it an important consideration for employers reviewing their leadership pipelines.
Advice without advocacy
The distinction is not new. Catalyst, a research nonprofit focused on women in business, surveyed more than 4,000 high-potential MBA graduates who left leading business schools worldwide between 1996 and 2007. Women in the sample were more likely than men to have mentors. A 2010 follow-up found that men had still received 15% more promotions.
In a Harvard Business Review article, Herminia Ibarra, Nancy Carter and Christine Silva attributed part of this gap to differences in mentors’ organizational influence. Advice alone may not translate into advancement when members lack the authority or networks to advocate for their protégés. The study’s MBA sample, however, limits how broadly its findings can be applied.
McKinsey’s 2025 research found that employees with sponsors were promoted at nearly twice the rate of those without over two years. The association does not prove that sponsorship alone caused the promotions, but it highlights a potential advantage of having senior leaders advocate for employees. This suggests that active advocacy from senior leaders can play a meaningful role in accelerating career progression.
Headline representation also masks where women sit. Sheryl Sandberg, LeanIn’s founder, noted at the 2024 report’s release that women in the C-suite disproportionately lead staff functions such as legal and HR. Fortune’s 2026 Global 500 list of the world’s largest companies by revenue counted a record 34 women CEOs, or 6.8%.
The pipeline narrows at the first rung. In 2025, 93 women were promoted to manager for every 100 men. About half of surveyed companies call women’s advancement a high priority, and some have scaled back formal sponsorship. McKinsey also cautions that participating companies have higher female representation than typical companies, potentially making the overall picture look more positive than it is.
Why informal sponsorship falls short
Informal sponsorship tends to follow existing networks. A Center for Talent Innovation survey of more than 3,000 U.S. white-collar employees, reported by Fortune in 2019, found that 71% of self-described sponsors named a protege of their own race or sex. Senior ranks skew male, which narrows the pool of sponsors further.
Access alone does not eliminate the promotion gap. McKinsey found that women with sponsors were promoted at 1.7 times the rate of women without sponsors, compared with a twofold rate for men. Employers therefore need to examine both who receives sponsorship and whether it translates into comparable advancement.
Legal exposure adds a third constraint. In March 2025, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued technical assistance listing access to mentoring, sponsorship and workplace networks among areas where decisions based on race or sex can violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Such documents are not binding, but they show how the agency reads the law for employers with U.S. operations.
What works: three counters
Build formal structure – McKinsey’s 2025 report recommends strengthening formal sponsorship programs with clear roles, commitments and structures, and training both sponsors and the employees they sponsor. The need is visible in its own data: among 64 organizations asked about HR practices, 39% said they had never offered a formal sponsorship program or were unsure. The report presents its advice as a recommendation, not a tested result.
Make sponsorship an accountable leadership responsibility – Women of Influence+, a Toronto-based organization, recommends making sponsorship a formal expectation of senior leaders and auditing who is sponsored and by whom. McKinsey notes that holding senior leaders accountable for diversity and inclusion is more common at top-performing companies, which it defines by women’s representation.
The link is an association. McKinsey’s survey of roughly 10,000 employees suggests what is at stake: 69% of entry-level women want a promotion, against 80% of men, the first ambition gap the study has recorded. The gap falls away when women and men receive similar career support.
Keep eligibility open – The Women of Influence+ survey of more than 400 professionals across North America, released in April 2025, found that 45% of respondents had ever had a sponsor. Among those never sponsored, 41% cited no access to senior leaders. The sample is modest and the findings are self-reported. A program open to all employees does not restrict access by sex or race, the conduct the EEOC guidance addresses. Employers with U.S. operations should confirm designs with counsel.
The decision for boards
The evidence does not show that mentoring is ineffective or that sponsorship guarantees promotion. It does suggest that advice without advocacy may be insufficient to overcome barriers to advancement.
Boards should incorporate sponsorship into succession planning and review its results alongside pipeline data. CEOs should assign senior sponsors to named high-potential staff and judge the program by promotions, not participation. Chief human resources officers should build programs open to all employees and, for U.S. operations, test them with counsel. The first promotion to manager, where 2025 rates diverge, is the logical checkpoint.
