The most female-dominated corner of the C-suite is also one of the least rewarded. Women hold 68% of global chief HR officer positions, according to The Josh Bersin Company, yet fewer than one in eight of those CHROs rank among their company’s five highest-paid executives. That gap between representation and compensation — a “power gap” that persists even in a function where women have long held numerical majority — sits at the centre of the second annual HRD Elite Women list, which names 70 of the most influential HR leaders across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
The CHRO pay paradox: why numerical dominance does not translate into commercial power
HR remains the most female-dominated profession in the APAC region, but the statistical dominance stops at the pay cheque. Grant Thornton’s Women in Business 2026 survey shows women occupy 43% of top HR roles globally — the highest share of any C-suite function, ahead of finance at 39% and the chief executive’s office at 23.8%. Yet across APAC, women hold just 31.8% of senior management roles, a figure that trails the global average of 32.9%.
Being excellent at HR is no longer enough at the most senior level.
The gap between role and reward is starker still. Research from the Academy to Innovate HR shows that 92% of HR leaders are directly involved in AI implementation, but only 21% are invited to shape overall business strategy. HR leaders are trusted to execute operational transformation but excluded from the strategic conversations that determine organisational direction — and, by extension, the compensation that follows strategic influence.
The three subtle barriers that hold back HR’s most senior women
The traditional obstacles — caregiving responsibilities, thinner professional networks — have not disappeared. But HR leaders on the Elite Women list describe a newer set of barriers that are harder to identify and harder to challenge.
Exclusion from core strategy: Too often, senior HR women are brought into conversations only after strategic direction has been set. They are asked to implement rather than shape, to operationalise rather than originate. That distinction matters because commercial credibility is built in the early, high-stakes meetings where budgets are allocated and priorities established.
Safe assignments instead of high-risk transformations: Restructures, acquisitions and technology overhauls build reputations. Yet women in HR are disproportionately handed the reliable, low-friction work — compliance, process refinement, stable-state HR delivery — rather than the volatile transformations that signal executive readiness.
Specialist positioning in the boardroom: When HR leaders are invited to present to boards, they are typically brought in as functional experts rather than as operators who understand how the organisation makes money, where margin is won and lost, and what keeps the CEO awake at night. That framing limits both perceived authority and compensation.
“Being excellent at HR is no longer enough at the most senior level,” says Tahnee McWhirter, partner at HumanX, an outsourced HR consultancy she opened in Sydney in 2020. “You need to understand how the organisation makes money, where margin is won and lost, what keeps the CEO awake and how people decisions affect the operating model.”
The consequences are showing up in broader workforce data. HiBob’s 2026 workplace research found that 35% of Australian women say they are no longer interested in leadership roles — not because of a lack of ambition, but because they have calculated the effort-reward ratio and found it wanting.
AI as the unexpected catalyst for broader influence
Gartner projects that artificial intelligence will manage or automate roughly half of all HR activity over the next several years. Strip out the administrative load, and what remains is judgement — the very currency that determines whether an HR leader is treated as a business operator or a function head.
McWhirter sees the shift as an opening rather than a threat. “Women leaders in HR can help make sure organisations don’t adopt technology simply because they can,” she says. “There are real questions around the interplay of ethics and the effect the change has on the employee experience. We need leaders who know where human judgement still matters.”
The data supports the opportunity. Among the 70 Elite Women winners, 44% describe mentoring other HR professionals as a core part of their influence. Half sit at director, general manager or C-suite level — the two most senior tiers on the list. These are leaders who already operate at the intersection of people strategy and commercial decision-making, and the AI transition is likely to amplify rather than diminish their relevance.
“I actually think that shift is good for women in HR because it broadens the pathway,” McWhirter argues. “The conversation becomes less about whether someone has followed a traditional HR career ladder and more about whether they can help run and shape a business.”
Who the 2026 Elite Women are: data from the list
The 70 winners span five countries. Australia accounts for 61%, New Zealand for 23%, with Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia making up the remainder. The three leading sectors — HR consulting (the single largest at 21%), manufacturing and technology — employ 51% of the winners. Notably, 16% are founders or independent consultants, a cohort larger than the entire manager-level tier, suggesting that entrepreneurship is an increasingly viable path to influence for women in the profession.
The winners were selected for the infrastructure they have built rather than the titles they hold. The following profiles capture four leaders whose work illustrates the range of commercial influence on the list.
Lisa Oakley: embedding Indigenous frameworks into conflict resolution
Lisa Oakley, director and lead consultant at People Associates in New Zealand, brings more than two decades of experience in employment relations, conflict resolution and leadership development. Her work is notable for the way it integrates commercial pragmatism with cultural depth. Oakley draws on her Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Kahu whakapapa to embed principles of whakarongo (listening), manaakitanga (care and respect) and whanaungatanga (relationship-building) into mediation and workplace investigations.
She created HR Unlocked, a professionally filmed podcast series featuring candid conversations with chief people officers across NZX-listed companies, designed to democratise C-suite insights for the wider profession. “I wanted to create a space where other practitioners and leaders could benefit from that same generosity,” Oakley says. Her doctoral research examines how small and medium-sized employers in Aotearoa New Zealand can resolve individual employment conflicts early, before positions harden and relationships deteriorate.
“Our value is not simply in producing the perfect process or document,” she says. “It’s in helping people make fair and courageous decisions when the circumstances are complex and there’s no risk-free option.”
Emma Harvie: reframing AI ROI as a human behaviour problem
Emma Harvie, global head of recognition and rewards insights at Achievers, translates workforce data into actionable strategy for CHROs across APAC and North America. Her central thesis — that the gap between AI investment and return is a human behaviour issue rather than a technology failure — has made her a sought-after keynote speaker. McKinsey research she cites shows that while 92% of companies are increasing AI spend, only 1% achieve clear returns.
Harvie’s APAC expansion of Achievers’ research footprint generated findings that challenge conventional wisdom about regional recognition behaviour. She found that 93% of APAC workers would put in more effort if recognised, and that Singapore had the region’s highest appetite for recognition (97%) alongside the lowest delivery rate — disproving the myth that low recognition in Asia stems from cultural discomfort with praise.
“Recognition data is different,” Harvie says. “It is behavioural, voluntary, continuous and real time. Use it as one of the sources that tells you whether the change is actually taking hold.”
Miranda McDonald: leading HR through Australia’s largest university merger
Miranda McDonald, former chief people officer at the University of South Australia, led the HR function through the creation of Adelaide University — the largest and most complex higher education merger in the country’s history. Operating under a compressed two-and-a-half-year timeline, McDonald guided over 100 HR specialists and thousands of staff through structural decisions, operational changes and deep cultural integration.
The hardest moments came when decisions had to be made that large groups of people would not welcome. When the merged university selected a legacy HR platform from one of the two predecessor institutions, McDonald’s own team of 100 specialists lost familiarity with their daily workflows. “It left them feeling very vulnerable and having to trust an as yet unknown leadership structure,” she says.
Her framework — which she calls “future-focused psychological safety” — centres on ensuring employees can see their place in the new entity. “If people can’t locate their place in the future, they can’t feel safe in the present,” McDonald says. She prioritised transparent vulnerability, sharing her own professional concerns to give staff permission to voice uncertainty. “People-first thinking isn’t a slogan; it’s the foundation of strategic delivery.”
Julie Statevski: retention as a commercial discipline in frontline industries
Julie Statevski, group HR people and culture general manager at SKG Services, manages people strategy for thousands of decentralised frontline workers across cleaning, security and facilities maintenance in Australia. Her core argument is that employee retention should be treated as a core business discipline rather than an HR metric. While recruitment carries a visible budget, Statevski notes, turnover costs remain hidden until people leave.
She points to the career trajectory of SKG Group CEO Prabin Shrestha, who joined the company 30 years ago as a part-time cleaner while studying and progressed through operational roles to become group CEO, as proof that structured internal pathways produce both commercial and cultural returns. “What matters most is making pathways clear and achievable, so people understand the next step,” Statevski says.
Her work links psychological safety directly to business outcomes. When frontline employees feel safe to raise risks or share process improvements, she argues, operational hazards decrease and client outcomes strengthen.
Natalie Carrington: the Service Impact Chain for purpose-driven organisations
Natalie Carrington founded Bloom HR in 2011 to provide tailored HR infrastructure to non-profit organisations across Australia. Her Service Impact Chain framework, adapted from the traditional service profit chain, demonstrates that when non-profit staff are properly supported and fairly paid, service quality improves, producing better outcomes for participants, tenants and communities.
Carrington also brokered a milestone partnership with Employment Hero that secured a flat-rate HRIS package of $300 per month for non-profits with fewer than 10 employees — removing the corporate minimum payment thresholds that had priced small community providers out of automated compliance. “If you get the basics right for employees, so they know they are paid correctly and understand their role, they are mentally freed up to focus on the communities they are there to support,” she says.
Her work with Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations and Land Councils embeds Indigenous cultural oversight directly into project teams, and her staff are accredited through Evolve Communities’ Registered Indigenous Ally Program.
Kim Caldow: engineering gender parity in transport
Kim Caldow, executive general manager of people and culture at Ventura, has driven industry-leading gender equity metrics in one of Australia’s most historically male-dominated sectors. Under her leadership, Ventura achieved a true 50/50 gender split across its board, executive team and 2026 apprenticeship intake, contributing to a record 16.5% overall female workforce participation and the hiring of 75 women across operational, trade and corporate roles in 2025 alone.
Caldow’s approach treats inclusion as a practical business discipline rather than a quota exercise. Her team re-engineered every step of the candidate journey — updating job advertisements, imagery, interview structures and workshop culture to eliminate bias. She launched Women at the Wheel in 2018, an open-day program that has guided more than 300 women into transport careers by providing hands-on driving experiences and peer interaction.
“Meaningful change rarely happens through one initiative or policy,” Caldow says. “It happens when leaders keep challenging the systems, habits and assumptions that have made progress difficult in the past.”
What sponsorship looks like when mentorship is not enough
The distinction between mentorship and sponsorship is one of the sharpest themes running through this year’s Elite Women list. Mentorship provides advice and guidance. Sponsorship provides access, visibility and the kind of stretch assignments that build commercial reputations.
“Women don’t just need more advice,” McWhirter says. “Sometimes, they need someone with influence to open the door. That means giving them visibility, recommending them for difficult assignments, putting them in front of the board and backing them when they stretch into something they haven’t done before.”
The 44% of winners who cite mentoring as a source of their influence suggests that women in senior HR positions are actively pulling others forward. But McWhirter argues that organisations need to look beyond individual development programs. “Stop treating the pipeline as a women’s development problem,” she says. “You can run all the leadership programs you like, but if the organisation keeps sponsoring, promoting and rewarding the same profile of leader, you will keep getting the same answer.”
The Elite Women of 2026 represent a profession at a inflection point. The data shows that women dominate HR numerically but remain marginalised in compensation and strategic influence. The leaders on this list are not waiting for the system to correct itself — they are building their own platforms, creating their own commercial exposure and, in many cases, founding their own firms. The question for the broader industry is whether organisations will close the power gap on their own, or watch their most capable HR leaders build influence elsewhere.
- Why do women dominate CHRO roles but not pay?Despite holding 68% of global CHRO positions, fewer than one in eight rank among their company's five highest-paid executives due to exclusion from strategic influence.
- What are the three subtle barriers holding back senior HR women?Exclusion from core strategy, safe assignments instead of high-risk transformations, and specialist positioning in the boardroom.
- How can organizations close the pay power gap?By providing sponsorship rather than just mentorship, giving women access, visibility, and stretch assignments that build commercial reputations.
