Top 10 Biggest EU Companies Led by Women

Key Takeaways

• Engie tops the list of the biggest women-led EU companies with $79.8 billion in revenue. It is led by CEO Catherine MacGregor.
• Four of the largest EU companies currently led by women are headquartered in France, including Engie, Crédit Mutuel Group, Veolia, and Orange.
• Women’s leadership in the heavy industry remains less represented. Companies in the ranking are mostly found in utilities and financial services. 
• Many appointments are recent. Several female CEOs in the ranking were appointed between 2021 and 2024, suggesting that representation is increasing gradually.

Largest Women-Led EU Companies

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Only a few female CEOs lead the largest corporations in the European Union.

At the top of the ranking is Catherine MacGregor, who leads Engie, the French energy and utilities company with revenues of nearly $80 billion. She has led the company since 2021, making Engie a rare example of sustained female leadership among Europe’s largest corporations.

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France stands out for having four of the ten largest women-led companies. These include:

• Engie, led by Catherine MacGregor
• Crédit Mutuel Group, Isabelle Ferrand
• Veolia Environnement, led by Estelle Brachlianoff
• Orange, led by Christel Heydemann

France has gradually increased female representation in senior corporate leadership, partly driven by board gender quota laws introduced in 2011.

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While these rules primarily apply to boards rather than executive positions, they have helped expand the pool of female executives across major French companies.

Beyond geography, the ranking also shows that the biggest women-led EU companies are concentrated in a few industries:

• Financial services: Crédit Mutuel, Achmea, Commerzbank
• Utilities and environmental services: Engie, Veolia

Several sectors that dominate the EU’s largest companies remain largely absent from the ranking, including energy (e.g., Shell, TotalEnergies), automotive manufacturing (e.g., Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz Group), and banking (e.g., BNP Paribas, Banco Santander). These business giants are also overwhelmingly led by male CEOs.

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At the same time, the data suggests that female representation in corporate leadership is slowly increasing. Several CEOs in the ranking were appointed only in the past few years.

Female CEOs remain rare among the continent’s largest companies, and their presence is concentrated in a handful of sectors and countries. However, recent appointments suggest the landscape is beginning to shift, even if the pace of change remains gradual.