According to a study conducted by leading independent business advisor Grant Thornton for International Women's Day, a third of companies still do not have a senior-level female executive. The research also includes data on high-level executives from 100 Turkish companies. Despite the low number of senior-level female executives, the companies trust the female executives the most with financial issues. However, the proportion of women in senior management at Turkish companies has decreased from 31 percent to 20 percent in the past five years. The senior role most commonly held by women is chief financial officer with 20 percent, followed by director of marketing and director of sales with 14 percent each.

There are numerous studies related to the progress that has been made globally in terms of women's development and social and economic participation. The companies and nongovernmental organizations who conduct such research are in consensus that women need to participate more broadly and in a more inclusive way in the labor force. However, much progress still needs to be made.

In Turkey where 49.8 percent of the population is composed of women, 43 percent of companies do not have women working in a senior position. Marketing and business development manager at Grant Thornton Turkey, Hilal Baltacı, said in order to provide the exact opposite results, more initiatives should be put into effect, especially ones that seek out qualified female candidates. She also stressed the determining role of support programs for families with children.

Additionally, Korn Ferry Hay Group conducted an IQ test on 50,000 professionals from 90 counties. The test results indicated that women had higher scores than men on almost all of the emotional intelligence tests. The only exception, a test for "emotional control," showed no difference between the two genders. Korn Ferry Executive Search Office Managing Director Nilgün Langenberg said the women were consistently higher for being empathic than men. "This is important for the business world," Langenberg added.

Willis Towers Watson Turkey's head of compensation surveys, Kerem Tuzlacı, said the amount of employed women in Turkey is 35 percent. According to Tuzlacı, logistics, heavy industry and technology companies have the lowest rate of female employees, while fast moving consumer goods, pharmaceutical and retail companies have the highest proportion of female employees.

Meanwhile, from Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co. to Unilever and Microsoft, female executives are in fierce competition with their male counterparts for the throne of these global firms. While female executives have been playing a great role in conglomerates in various sectors, including food and beverage, telecommunications and information technology (IT) for some time, recently, the target for female Turkish executives is the finance sector, where women constitute 55 percent of total employees.

One of the largest banks in the world, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, assigned Turkish executive Elif Bilgi Zapparoli as the head of their operations in the Asia-Pacific region. Zapparoli, who is also the co-chair of Bank of America Merrill Lynch's investment banking unit, will conduct the operations from Hong Kong. Zapparoli had previously acted as the CEO of Merrill Lynch Yatırım Bank A.Ş. in Turkey. Zapparoli is acting as the global executive of the State Asset Fund of Bank of America, which is worth more than $5 trillion, as well. Moreover, she was included among the "100 Future Global Leaders of the World" by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2004. The finance giant, established in 1904 under the name Bank of America, changed its name to Bank of America Merrill Lynch after acquiring Merrill Lynch in 2008. It is the second-largest financial institution in the United States with a turnover of $85 billion and total assets of $2.1 trillion. The bank, which recorded a profit of $14 billion last year, currently has more than 200,000 employees.

Another notable female Turkish finance executive in the U.S. is 34-year-old Hafize Gaye Erkan, who is sought after by various internationally acclaimed finance institutions. Erkan recently became the top name at First Republic Bank, which has $33 billion in assets. She was assigned as the senior assistant director at the bank, which supplements her duties as the director of the Investment Department and as the co-chair of the Risk Management Department.

Yet another striking name in terms of female Turkish executives in finance is Aylin Suntay, who was promoted to CEO and assistant director of the Asset Management Department of Russia's largest energy company, Gazprom. Suntay, who has worked in various well-known European funds, has also become the first foreigner to be assigned to this duty. Suntay has been employed in the U.S., the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and she established Gazprombank's first Western fund worth $5.3 billion.