The LCWINS Tracker

About

The LCWINS Tracker identifies progress toward our goal of gender parity across 500 senior leadership positions with meaningful influence on U.S. national security and foreign policy. This publicly available resource will enable researchers, campaign and transition team staff, policymakers, members of the media, and the public to better understand our country’s progress toward women’s full participation in national security and foreign policy decision-making.

This project is a critical part of the LCWINS mission to advance gender parity in U.S. national security and foreign policy leadership. It began in 2020 with the LCWINS Pledge, a commitment to gender parity in senior national security leadership roles made by presidential candidates from both parties. Annual updates to the LCWINS Tracker will allow the public to monitor each administration’s progress toward that commitment.

In keeping with our mission, the LCWINS Tracker is focused on gender inclusion. This resource does not currently include information on racial diversity or inclusion. We recognize the importance of diversity in all its forms and are exploring ways to leverage this resource to support expanded analysis with, by, and for additional communities.

Questions and feedback about the LCWINS Tracker may be directed to staff@lcwins.org. Media inquiries may be sent to press@lcwins.org.

Methodology

The LCWINS Tracker is built upon a list of positions across the federal government that we identified as of senior leadership rank and with an impact on U.S. national security. People in these roles regularly find themselves in decision-making settings; therefore, it is here that gender parity has the greatest opportunity to strengthen the security and position of the U.S. in the world.

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what we track:

We define “senior leadership” as positions with a hierarchical rank of Deputy Assistant Secretary and above, as well as equivalent roles with variations of related titles. The specific positions included meet that rank and have titles that fall within nine hierarchical groups:

  1. Secretary, Agency Head
  2. Deputy Secretary
  3. Under Secretary
  4. Assistant Secretary
  5. Deputy Assistant Secretary, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Deputy Under Secretary
  6. Chief of Staff
  7. Envoy, Representative, Coordinator
  8. Director, Senior Director
  9. Other (e.g. Deputy Inspector General, Chief Operating Officer, etc.)

Note that we track American ambassadors serving in U.S. overseas embassies, but we do not include those positions in the overall numbers for the Tracker, Diplomacy field generally, or State Department specifically. These positions are important for the implementation of American foreign policy, but those roles within the central State Department in Washington, DC have greater influence on policy debate and adoption. We also monitor National Security Council membership. Instead of including this group collectively, those positions are tracked within their respective departments, agencies, and offices.

We define six broad categories of responsibility into which all tracked positions fall:

  1. Defense & Security – Military department leadership, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
  2. Diplomacy – The State Department, U.S. Representatives to the United Nations, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), and Peace Corps.
  3. The Intelligence Community – The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
  4. The National Security Council – The National Security Council (NSC) Staff at the White House.
  5. Finance & Banking – The Departments of Commerce and Treasury, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, U.S. Export-Import Bank, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and U.S. representatives to international development banks.
  6. Other – This group includes agencies not traditionally considered to be directly responsible for national security but which house positions of impact at the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Energy. In addition, it includes the Offices of Management and Budget (OMB), National Cyber Director (ONCD), and Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
VIEW 2024 TRACKERVIEW 2023 TRACKER