Thirty-nine percent.
That’s how much more likely companies with the most women on their executive teams are to outperform financially than companies with the fewest, according to McKinsey & Co.’s 2023 study of more than 1,200 companies in 23 countries.
In 2015, the gap was 15%.
Simply put, the business case for women in leadership isn’t just holding up. It’s getting stronger.
Onome Adejemilua, the president-elect of Executive Women of New Jersey, didn’t need a study to tell her.
“The data is irrefutable,” she said Wednesday night. “Diversity is not simply the right principle. It makes business sense.”
Adejemilua, a corporate partner at McCarter & English and Co-Deputy Chair of its Corporate Practice Group, chaired EWNJ’s 2026 Salute to the Policy Makers gala.
She delivered that message to about 500 people at the Legacy Castle in Pompton Plains, where the group honored 48 women leaders in fields ranging from academia and accounting to health care, law and tech.
***
EWNJ’s own research on New Jersey companies is a powerful proof of concept.
Adejemilua told the crowd that EWNJ has found that companies with more women on their boards outperform the market. But she also said progress in the state has slipped in some areas after years of steady gains.
“This is an important reminder of why EWNJ’s work still matters and why your support remains crucial,” she said.
EWNJ President Susan Dromsky-Reed of Brach Eichler tied the moment to America’s 250th anniversary, recalling Abigail Adams’ 1776 letter urging her husband to “remember the ladies” as the new nation wrote its laws.
“There has been notable progress, but we are not finished,” Dromsky-Reed said.
***
Keynote speaker Mikki Taylor, the longtime Essence editor-at-large who grew up in Newark, pushed the point further. Getting women into leadership, she said, is only the start.
“A woman holding a position of power matters,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, but what changes because she holds that position matters just as much.”
Taylor spent more than three decades at Essence. She said her career taught her the power of being seen.
“When you change the image, you challenge the perception,” she said. “When you challenge the perception, you expand the possibilities, and when you expand the possibilities, you begin to change humanity.”
She closed with seven “edicts” for the leaders in the room, including one aimed squarely at the boardroom.
“Don’t just diversify the leadership table,” she said. “Change who has the power to set it.”
***
EWNJ tracks the numbers in New Jersey with its Seat at the Table report, published every two years since 2013. The most recent edition came out last year, and the next is due in 2027.
The 2025 report found that women hold 29% of board seats at the state’s public companies. That’s more than double the 14% in 2013, but unchanged from 2023.
There were bright spots. Seven of the 86 companies studied had women CEOs, up from four in 2013. But women’s share of board seats at the state’s Fortune 500 companies slipped from 37% to 35%, and the number of companies with no women on their boards rose from two to four.
That’s the backslide Adejemilua warned about, and the reason, she said, the group’s work isn’t finished.
***
EWNJ was founded in 1980. After 46 years, Taylor said, the goal still isn’t simply more women in charge.
“Transformational leadership carries an extraordinary responsibility to ensure that the future is not simply a continuation of the past with different people in charge,” she said.
The gala also funds EWNJ’s Graduate Merit Award Program, which provides tuition assistance to women who are nontraditional graduate students in New Jersey. This year’s winner was Felician University doctoral candidate Talin Medzadourian Araian.
Medzadourian Araian, who returned to school after two decades, said she knows what that support means.
“There is nothing more beautiful than women who use the strength they have gained from their own struggles to help pave the way for another,” she said.
Medzadourian Araian added this for the leaders in the room:
“Thank you for recognizing that true leadership is not only about the success that we achieve, but the opportunities we create for others.”
***
The 2026 honorees:
A–F
Stacey Antar: General Counsel, Ferring Pharmaceuticals
Linda Baraka: First Lady of Newark, BOLD Newark
Regina Barboza: Director of Development & Strategic Initiatives, Newark Arts Council
Kate Barrett: President, The Campbell’s Foundation, The Campbell’s Company
Deb Belfatto: Founder & Chief Visionary, Let’s Talk Women’s Health & Wellness
Kirsten Scheurer Branigan: Managing Partner, KSBranigan Law
Patricia Campos-Medina: Executive Director & Faculty, The Worker Institute, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University
Jennifer Carrillo Perez: Partner, Connell Foley
Monica Padovano Casiello: Vice President of Business Development, US Title Solutions
Laura Crowley: Partner, Citrin Cooperman
Lori DelGiudice: Senior Vice President, Human Resources, New Jersey Resources
Lexie Demirali: Senior Product Officer, New Jersey Economic Development Authority
Nora DeVeau-Rosen: Managing Director, Two River Theater
Veronica Diaz: Director of Consumer & Sales Support, AmeriHealth
Nicola Ellam: Managing Principal, NY/NJ, CliftonLarsonAllen
Michelle Ferrer: Founding Partner, Ferrer Goldfine Law Group
G–O
Gemma Giantomasi: Member of the Executive Committee, CSG Law
Susan Okin Goldsmith: Partner, McCarter & English
Gail Gordon: Trustee, Hackensack Meridian Health Network, and Commissioner, NJSEA; GB Gordon Associates
Sandra Grannum: Partner, Faegre Drinker
Jan Brown Helgeson: Managing Director, Human Capital, Deloitte
Aiysha (AJ) Johnson: CEO & Executive Director, NJ Society of Certified Public Accountants
Dianne LaRocca: Vice President, Talent, Culture & Wellbeing, PSEG
Shannon Lazare: Executive Vice President and Regional President of NJ, M&T Bank
Nadine Leslie: Chair and CEO, Middlesex Water
Brenda Liss: General Counsel, Newark Board of Education
Sonia Luaces: Lead Client Partner, PwC
Filomena Machleder: Associate Director, The Horizon Foundation for NJ, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ
Jennifer Mara: Managing Partner, Baldassare & Mara
Martha Marchesi: CEO, JK Communications
Valerie Jules McCarthy: Partner, Pashman Stein Walder Hayden
Wendy O’Ree: Senior Managing Director, Wealth Management, Peapack Private Bank & Trust
P–Z
Caroline Patterson: Member & Vice Chair, Healthcare Law, Brach Eichler
Barbara Peña: Tax Partner, EisnerAmper
Christine Pronek: Principal, WilkinGuttenplan
Michelle Richardson: Executive Director, Hudson County Economic Development Corporation
Suzette Robinson: Senior Vice President, People, Belonging and Impact, RWJBarnabas Health
Veronica Ross: Senior Vice President & Director of Engagement, Kearny Bank
Leigh Russo: Senior Wealth Advisor, Mariner
Bhakti Shah: Partner, PKF O’Connor Davies
Natalia Shuman: CEO, MISTRAS Group
Dr. Tania Small: Senior Vice President & Head of Global Medical Affairs, Bristol Myers Squibb
Jennifer Phillips Smith: Director, FBT Gibbons
Joanne Spears: Senior Vice President, Financial Planning, Newport Capital Group
Shavonda Sumter: CEO, Children’s Aid & Family Services
Alicia Brittany Sundberg: Executive Vice President, Strategic Client Solutions, Fidelity Investments
Shelley Sylva: US Head, Corporate Citizenship, TD Bank
Kathy Timko: CEO, iconectiv
