Global Leadership Report 2026
April 3rd, 2026
The 2026 Global Leadership Report is DDP’s annual examination of the gender distribution of leadership positions at the largest ballet and classically-based companies across the globe. This report analyzes 213 professional performance companies, including the Largest 50 U.S. ballet and classically-based companies ranked by FY2023 expenditure. Report Lead Bailey Walker notes, “The scope of this report speaks to DDP’s continued growth as an essential organization for dance research. In its initial iteration, the Global Leadership Report covered 125 companies. Examining more positions at more companies improves our sample’s representation of the dance industry and improves the quality and quantity of data available for industry-wide advocacy.”
Of the 215 artistic directors analyzed in the 2026 report, 30.7% were women, 68.8% were men, and 0.5% were gender expansive. Minimal changes were observed compared to findings from 2025 (30.0%) and 2024 (29.0%).
Analysis revealed that globally, 53.7% of executive directors, 58.3% of assistant/associate artistic directors, 64.9% of artistic directors of second companies, and 86.5% of music directors and principal conductors are men. Figure 1 illustrates the ongoing decline in the percentage of female associate and assistant artistic directors. External Communications Lead, Nancy Dobbs Owen, notes that “The longitudinal data reveals an ongoing trend in these secondary positions: Associate and Assistant Artistic Directors, and School Directors. These roles, which often serve as feeders and training grounds for the coveted top spots, are increasingly going to men. Insights like these show that the pipeline is not moving toward equity, but rather away from it.”
FIGURE 1:
Female Associate/Assistant Artistic Directors – Year-Over-Year Comparisons
NOTE: Reported findings represent the “Global Aggregate” column. The “Global Aggregate (Adjusted)” column includes only the Largest 10 U.S. ballet companies (based on FY2023 expenditure) to lessen the weight of the U.S. sample. Of these companies, there are 50 associate and assistant artistic directors, 38.0% of whom are women.
The only leadership positions that showed a higher percentage of women vs. men were heads of school (62.6%) and rehearsal directors (57.2%). However, DDP’s longitudinal data shows a decrease in both the number and percentage of female heads of school compared to 2023 (71.0%) and a decrease in female rehearsal directors compared to 2024 (59.0%).
DDP also compared the gender distribution of leadership across companies based on size. Of the 12 largest companies with more than 100 dancers, only 25.0% were led by women. This is a slight decrease compared to the previous year, where women led 27.3% of the 11 largest companies. The largest company led by a woman is Tokyo City Ballet, which is ranked 6th globally.
