Odesa Region Ranks 3rd in Ukraine for Women in Business Leadership

Odesa region is among the top five regions of Ukraine in terms of the number of women in business leadership positions. Currently, women head 27,337 companies in Odesa region, second only to Kyiv and Kyiv region.

This data was published by the Opendatabot platform.

In general, women head about 449 thousand companies in Ukraine, which is almost a third of the total number. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the share of female directors has been steadily increasing.

Most female executives work in the following areas:

• Education - 70% of women are at the head of companies.
• Public administration and defense - 58%.
• Creativity, art and entertainment - 58%.
• Tourism - 57%.

The growth of women executives is particularly noticeable in the IT, agriculture, and construction sectors. In particular, the number of directors of new IT companies has increased by 69% over the past year. In the agricultural sector, this figure increased by 25%, and in construction by 17%.

The frontline regions also became leaders in terms of the share of female directors: in Donetsk region, 37% of companies are headed by women, in Kherson region - 35%, and in Luhansk region - 34%. In Poltava region, the share of women executives increased by 24%, in Khmelnytskyi region - by 18%, and in Kyiv region - by 11%.

Kyiv has the highest number of women in management positions - 109,734, Kyiv region - 22,711, Odesa region - 27,337, Lviv region - 24,406, and Kharkiv region - 23,562.

Earlier, Odesa region was among the top three regions of Ukraine where foreign nationals were most active in starting a business in 2024.

Odesa region also became the leader in the south in terms of the number of relocated companies in 2024.

Meanwhile, in 2024, Odesa region became one of the three regions that best implement modern digital technologies. This was confirmed by a study that evaluates the work of digitalization specialists and regional military administrations.

Ірина Глухова