Women, most of all working mothers, are more likely than men to stay in a role for its flexibility and less likely to stay solely for higher pay.
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The gig economy has made its way to the C-suite. A new report from executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that over a third of CEOs hired in the first six months of 2025 were appointed on an interim basis. Dubbing it the “CEO gig economy,” the report found that companies are increasingly opting to hire temporary CEOs instead of full-time leaders.
Redefining Executive Leadership Through The CEO Gig Economy
Andy Challenger, workplace and labor expert at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, explains that the rise of the CEO gig economy reflects a broader trend of executives reentering the workforce “on their own terms” post-pandemic. In the report, Challenger states that interim CEO roles offer valuable opportunities for career development, along with a new level of flexibility for executives. According to Challenger, these temporary positions allow CEOs “the opportunity to take on fresh challenges, keep their skills sharp, and maintain flexibility over their workload and boundaries.”
The shift toward more flexibility in leadership roles is echoed in a recent Harvard Business Review article titled “How Part-Time Senior Leaders Can Help Your Business.” In this piece, authors Tomoko Yokoi and Amy Bonsall explore a related concept known as fractional leadership, which is when companies hire “fractional leaders, or part-time senior talent” to serve in executive positions.
According to Yokoi and Bonsall, hiring fractional leaders is becoming an appealing option for organizations as it provides access to skilled, experienced senior talent without the high cost of a full-time executive salary. The authors emphasize that this advantage is especially compelling for early-stage or small to mid-size companies, which “often lack the financial resources or the volume of work to justify hiring full-time experienced senior executives.”
And much like the rise in companies hiring interim CEOs, the trend toward hiring fractional executive talent has also been growing in recent years. A LinkedIn search conducted by Yokoi and Bonsall found that, as of 2024, over 110,000 professionals identify themselves as fractional leaders (that’s up from just 2,000 in 2022).
The CEO Gig Economy, Fractional Leadership And Potential Drawbacks
While the CEO gig economy and fractional leadership roles may offer newfound flexibility for executives and can be financially prudent for businesses, they also present their own set of challenges. Temporary leadership may struggle to earn internal trust and loyalty, for instance. The Challenger report found that hiring interim CEOs can make it harder to cultivate trust among work teams since employees often know that “their leader could leave at any moment.” Similarly, Yokoi and Bonsall’s research reinforces this sentiment, stressing that “the foundation of a successful fractional engagement” depends on “transparency and trust.”
Moreover, the data suggests that addressing ongoing gender disparities in leadership will become increasingly important as temporary and fractional leadership models continue to gain traction. If interim roles are introduced without focusing on gender equity, they could impede women’s long-term success in executive positions.
According to the Challenger report, the rate of new women CEOs in the first half of this year remained at 25%, down from 28% during the same period last year. And a separate report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that in the first quarter of 2025, 23% of CEOs who exited their roles were women, up from 20% the previous year, and over half of those women were replaced by men. In contrast, of the nearly 500 men who left CEO positions during the same period, only 17% were succeeded by women (a decline from 22% in 2024).
This is troubling given the persistently low representation of women in leadership overall and the typically shorter tenure of women CEOs compared to men. According to LinkedIn’s recent “The State of Women in Leadership” report, as of 2024, just 30.6% of leadership positions are occupied by women, which is up only 0.2% from 2022. And a report from Russell Reynolds Associates illustrates a “CEO tenure gap,” with the average tenure for women CEOs being 5.2 years, nearly three years less than the 7.9-year average for men. If the already small number of women leaders are appointed primarily to interim CEO appointments, only to be quickly replaced by men, it could further undermine efforts to achieve gender equity in executive leadership.
The lack of women in senior leadership is also in large part driven by persisting workplace gender biases. This includes the glass cliff, where women are more likely to be placed in leadership positions during times of crisis or instability, when the risk of failure is higher. In fact, Russell Reynolds Associates’ report attributes the CEO tenure gap between men and women to the glass cliff, finding that women are more likely to be promoted to leadership roles during times of crisis—and are more likely to be fired and subjected to harsher scrutiny from boards, regardless of their performance.
In addition to the glass cliff, there’s the broken rung, where women struggle to advance from entry-level roles into leadership roles. An increase in interim or temporary executive roles could further limit the number of full-time leadership opportunities available for women. Thus, if companies continue to pursue interim CEO appointments and fractional leadership roles without acknowledging the potential impact these trends have on equity at the top, they risk deepening the systemic barriers that hold women back from attaining and succeeding in executive roles.
Reimagining The CEO Gig Economy As A Pathway For Women’s Career Advancement
On the other hand, if companies actively recognize and address gender bias in hiring interim or fractional leaders, this trend could become a major opportunity for women in business rather than an enormous setback. After all, the recent “Women at Work 2025” poll conducted by CNBC and SurveyMonkey found that women, most of all working mothers, are more likely than men to stay in a role for its flexibility and less likely to stay solely for higher pay. Since flexibility is one of the key advantages of interim and part-time leadership positions, these roles could be especially appealing to women leaders seeking greater work-life balance.
It could also help counteract the motherhood penalty, where working mothers face wage losses due to the challenges of balancing their career and caregiving responsibilities. Flexible leadership roles may offer women a new way to balance parenthood while still pursuing career goals.
And as previously reported, there are several strategies businesses can adopt to reduce workplace gender bias and empower women in the workforce. These include recognizing and addressing selection bias in hiring, implementing targeted workplace programs and mentorship opportunities to support women’s career growth and ensuring more women are promoted into positions that serve as stepping stones to executive leadership, such as roles with profit and loss experience.
With more interim and fractional leaders shaping executive teams, the CEO gig economy is becoming a common part of today’s business landscape. And while these flexible models can boost business outcomes and provide greater autonomy for leaders, if not implemented thoughtfully, they risk reinforcing existing gender disparities.
To ensure that they’re getting the most out of the rise of the CEO gig economy and hiring the best leaders for the job, companies should be intentional about addressing systemic bias and creating equitable pathways for career advancement. By intentionally hiring, uplifting and empowering women, the corporate world can turn this leadership shift into a powerful opportunity—one that not only supports organizational goals but also actively puts more women at the top of businesses.
