Man Planet, a crowdsourced list of things that have never been run by a woman

If we told you that more than 95 of the world’s top-ranked universities have never elected a female president, you might or might not be surprised, but you would likely forget within the hour.

Now, what if we told you that in its 800-year history, the University of Oxford has not had a single female president? Now that you might remember. Surely, eight centuries is more than enough time to find a competent female leader.

The organizations that we work with are tackling some of the world’s most pressing challenges. These are problems that aren’t solved within a news cycle, a year, or even a decade. So our job is to continuously find ways to hold people’s attention. To keep them curious and engaged. To ensure that as long as these problems exist, there are people who will take action.

Gender inequality is one of those issues. It’s been discussed for decades and there’s been some progress. But it hasn’t gone away. So we gave ourselves a challenge: how might we bring renewed attention to this very old problem?

Our answer is an experiment called Man Planet, a crowdsourced list of things that have never been run by a woman.

If you’re curious, have a look. We just released a very partial list to test the waters, and would love to hear what you think. So far, it includes:

• 95 top-ranked research universities, including one that has been run by men for 936 years (we did say this problem was old)
• Lots of central banks in countries where the economy is, well, you be the judge
• 17 international organizations responsible for things like nuclear war prevention
• Quite a few sports federations (Tennis? Cycling? The Olympics?)
• And, no surprise, more than 100 national governments

As a crowdsourced list, it is of course not a representative sample, but we want to make it grow, and we’re getting started this Women’s History Month. So if you can think of an institution that should be included, make sure to add it (no registration is required)! Thanks, and please do tell us what you think on X and LinkedIn.

Cheers to more women in power!