For a long time, the discussion about gender equity in companies was restricted to the field of social responsibility or institutional marketing. Including women in campaigns, publishing diverse photos on LinkedIn and declaring public commitments were enough to make up the narrative of a company concerned about people. But the scenario has changed. And the data confirms it: the gender equity is today one of the most proven variables for sustainable financial growth.
The question that leaders need to answer is no longer ‘why include women?’, but rather ‘how to structure a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging plan (DEIP) that generates measurable results?’.
And to answer this accurately, you need to start with what every good initiative requires: reliable data, robust diagnostics and technologies and tools capable of supporting this journey, transforming business information into concrete, evidence-driven actions.
What the numbers say about gender diversity and performance
Various studies by major consultancies and international organizations have highlighted the direct relationship between gender equity and business performance. A study of the UN's International Labor Organization (ILO) showed that, among companies actively working to promote a more equal environment, 74% reported growth from 5% to 20%. In addition, 60.21% of these companies reported an increase in profit, and 56.81% reported an improvement in attracting and retaining talent.
In Brazil, there is still plenty of room for progress. According to research Women in Business 2024, by Grant Thornton, the country ranks 10th out of the 28 countries analyzed in terms of female participation in leadership positions, with 37%.
Although positive, the figure represents a drop of 2% compared to the previous year, when Brazil reached a record 39%. At the same time report of the federal government's salary transparency report, released in September 2024, showed that women are still paid, on average, 20.7% less than men in the country.
The economic impact of correcting this distortion is significant. In February 2026, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published an analysis concluding that halving the difference in participation between men and women in the Brazilian labor market could add around 0.5 percentage points to the country's annual growth. The diagnosis reinforces that increasing women's presence in the labor market is one of the main growth engines available to Brazil.
DEIP as a strategy: why go beyond formal equality?
Gender equality, within the framework DEIP, Gender equality is not just about ensuring that men and women occupy the same physical space in the company. It's about creating structural conditions so that people of different genders have real opportunities for growth, recognition and development, without invisible cultural barriers, unconscious biases or inadequate policies acting as obstacles.
But to talk about gender equality without recognizing the diversity within the “women” group itself is to reproduce a partial view of reality. Black women, women with disabilities, LGBT+ women and women in situations of socio-economic vulnerability face overlapping layers of discrimination that are not captured when analyzing gender in isolation.
An equity policy that does not consider these intersections can paradoxically only benefit white, cisgender and non-disabled women, leaving the most vulnerable even further behind.
According to the 2024/2025 edition of Ethos/Época Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Survey, conducted with 224 Brazilian organizations, 83 of which already include DEIP in their strategic planning.
The presence of women in hiring programs rose from 55.88% in 2024 to 59.38% in 2025. Even so, the study points out that structured targets for attracting and retaining talent remain one of the main challenges in business, as they require genuine involvement from companies.
This is because many organizations declare their support for gender equality, but operate without clear indicators, There are no market benchmarks and no tools to measure the real impact of the initiatives implemented. And that's how good initiatives become isolated actions, and isolated actions don't transform cultures.
What the Diversity Census reveals about the reality of companies
One of the biggest problems faced by organizations when dealing with gender equity is the absence of an accurate diagnosis of the reality itself. Without knowing who the people are in the company, how they are distributed by positions, areas and hierarchical levels, it is impossible to build effective strategies.
And to fill exactly this gap, a Diversity Census should be carried out in companies. Through data management technologies and specialized staff, it allows companies to capture demographic data on their teams in real time, generating accurate diagnoses on the composition of their teams by gender, race, age group, people with disabilities, gender identity and other relevant social markers.
With this information in hand, the leadership can go beyond discourse and identify, for example, in which areas of the company women are under-represented, where the career progression gaps between genders are concentrated, and which teams have the highest turnover of female talent. This information creates the basis for a concrete action plan that can be monitored and linked to business objectives.
“We can no longer talk about an inclusive culture without data. The PlurieBR Diversity X-Ray goes beyond a traditional demographic census: it also reveals how different groups experience culture, belonging and opportunities in the organization. It's designed to take companies out of the realm of assumptions and put leaders face to face with the reality of who makes up their teams. Because only those who know their own reality can really transform it with strategy and intent”, says Laura Salles, founder and CEO of PlurieBR
From data to decisions: how the PlurieBR platform connects equity and results
Every transformation begins with clarity and, in the context of gender equality, this means understanding the company's internal reality before making any strategic move. But turning this knowledge into strategic decisions requires going beyond the initial diagnosis: you need to analyze the data in depth, identify patterns, risks and opportunities, and connect all of this to business results.
It is precisely with this logic in mind that PlurieBR has been structured around three complementary pillars: measuring, analyzing and generating value for the business. In the measurement pillar, in addition to the Diversity X-Ray, the platform captures indicators of people throughout their professional journey, segmented by social group, area and leadership. This makes it possible to identify, for example, when the pipeline of women is most negatively impacted within the company.
In the analysis pillar, PlurieBR maps risks of DEIP e ESG, It identifies the main gaps in relation to market benchmarks and positions the brand's reputation in relation to the sector. This comparative view is essential for companies to understand where they stand in relation to the practices of benchmark organizations and what they need to adjust in order to remain competitive in attracting talent and in the corporate sustainability agenda.
Finally, the value generation pillar connects all these analyses to the impact on the business: it brings together indicators that help measure the ROI of inclusion initiatives in terms of engagement and retention, the reduction of turnover costs and legal risks, as well as showing how reputation and brand image are strengthened by a genuinely inclusive culture.
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Gender equality with an intersectional focus: why it's not enough to talk about “women”
To talk about gender equality without considering intersectionality is to construct an incomplete equality. Race, gender, sexual orientation and disability do not operate as isolated factors. They combine and create unique experiences of exclusion that generic diversity policies cannot address.
When a company structures its equity agenda looking only at gender, it runs the risk of benefiting mainly a specific profile of woman, leaving out precisely those whose experiences and traversals require a much more careful and intentional look.
In the Brazilian context, the data reveals this erasure. O 4th Salary Transparency Report, The report, published by the federal government in November 2025 on the basis of data from 54,000 companies, shows that black women are paid 46% less than white men. This is not just a gender gap. It's the combination of race and gender, generating a concrete and measurable double wage penalty.
In the field of gender identity, a Ipea study, The report, published in October 2025, revealed that only 25% of trans people were formally employed in Brazil, a percentage almost 7 points lower than the national average. Among trans women and transvestites, this rate drops even further: only 20.7% have formal employment. For each of these groups, the barriers are not just cultural. They are structural and persist regardless of the level of education or qualification.
From the point of view of bias, women from under-represented groups face overlapping layers that need to be named by companies. Black women are impacted by racial bias in hiring, by the stereotype of “emotional hypercompetence” that robs them of their right to vulnerability, and by the absence of mirrors in positions of reference.
Women with disabilities live with the ableist bias that questions their productivity before even evaluating their deliveries, as well as physical and digital environments that are still not accessible. LGBT+ women, especially trans and transvestite women, face exclusion right at the gate: selection processes that don't respect their social name, presentation policies that ignore their identity and environments where they have to make themselves invisible in order to survive. Recognizing these biases is not just a matter of social justice, it is also a condition for the DEIP strategy to be effective in business.
Women in leadership: the impact that goes beyond metrics
When we talk about gender equity as a growth strategy, we're not just talking about percentages in leadership positions. We're talking about how the presence of women in decision-making positions changes the way companies think, innovate and relate to their audiences.
According to report “McKinsey's ”Diversity Matters Even More" (2023), the likelihood of financial outperformance among companies with greater gender diversity in leadership has grown from 15% in 2015 to 39% in 2023, which is more than double in less than a decade. The study, which analyzed more than 1,200 companies in 23 countries, reinforces that companies with more than 30% women in their executive teams are significantly more likely to financially outperform those with less representation.
In the last ten years, female representation has advanced at all corporate levels. According to “Women in the Workplace 2024”, According to the largest study on women in the corporate environment, carried out by McKinsey in partnership with LeanIn.Org, women today occupy 29% of senior leadership positions, compared to just 17% in 2015. A significant leap, but still far from balanced.
This is because the same report points out that progress is fragile and, at the current rate, it would take almost 50 years to achieve full parity of female representation in leadership. This fact alone should be a wake-up call for any organization that believes it is making enough progress.
More than a social problem, the slowness of this movement represents a concrete loss of diversity of perspectives, capacity for innovation and connection with markets that women represent and directly influence. Companies that understand this come out ahead, attract better talent, make more balanced decisions and build more solid and sustainable organizational cultures.
From commitment to strategy: what companies need to do now
The Ethos/Época 2024/2025 Survey, mentioned earlier, also showed that 43.1% of Brazilian companies already have specific strategies for DEIP. But only 22.4% believe that their planning is extremely effective. This gap between action and results is exactly where the biggest challenge lies for Brazilian organizations seeking to evolve in terms of gender equality.
The effectiveness of a strategy DEIP depends on three fundamental elements: reliable data on who makes up the company, structured analysis of this data to identify priorities, and actions linked to measurable business results. Without this triangle, any initiative runs the risk of being perceived as cosmetic, both internally by employees and externally by the market.
And this data needs to take into account intersectional issues. It's not enough to know how many women there are in the company. We need to know how many are black, how many have disabilities, how many are LGBT+, at what hierarchical levels each group is present and what their comparative progression trajectory is.
Without this level of knowledge, gender policies run the risk of benefiting only part of the “women” group, precisely those who already occupy positions of greater privilege within their own category. Real inclusion requires seeing who is still left out.
For Laura Salles, founder and CEO of PlurieBR, the gender equity can no longer be treated as a side project in organizations.
“Companies that still treat diversity and inclusion as a communication agenda are missing out on a real competitive advantage. Market evidence already shows that more diverse teams generate better results, make more balanced decisions and create cultures that attract and retain the best talent. What most lack is methodology. And that's exactly what PlurieBR offers: the intelligence to turn commitment into strategy and strategy into measurable results“.
Equity as a lever for growth
A gender equity today occupies a place that goes far beyond institutional discourse. It cuts across compliance decisions, investor attractiveness and competitiveness in the talent market. Companies that have not yet structured their approach DEIP with data and methodology carry a gap that, over time, becomes a real competitive disadvantage.
The starting point for any organization that wants to evolve in a genuine and structured way is simple and begins with knowing its own reality. Know who the people who make up your teams are, how they are distributed, what their experience is like within the organizational culture and what barriers, visible or invisible, limit their development.
In the end, the question that every leader needs to ask themselves is not whether the gender equity worth the investment. The data has already answered that. The real question is how long the organization can afford to grow without it.
Companies that advance this agenda are not just fulfilling a legal obligation or responding to market pressure. They are recognizing, in practice, that diversity of perspectives generates better decisions, that true inclusion builds more resilient cultures and that gender equity is not an end point, but a smarter way of operating. Companies that understand this aren't just doing the right thing, they're doing the most strategic thing.