Sheryl Palmer

Company: Taylor MorrisonTitle: Chairman & CEOIndustry: ConstructionNotable in 2024: Palmer used her position as the only female chairman of a publicly traded homebuilder to expand opportunities for women in construction. Taylor Morrison's workforce is now 44% female, which is four times the industry average.

When it comes to building homes, Sheryl Palmer of Scottsdale, Arizona-based Taylor Morrison stands alone.

With housing construction and land development operations in 20 markets in 12 states — and over 300 active selling communities across the country, from first-time homes to move-up, luxury and resort lifestyle purchase and rental properties — Palmer has built Taylor Morrison into a real estate industry powerhouse, one of the top-performing stocks in the sector, and a model for how to rebalance the gender equation in traditionally male-dominated sectors. After more than a decade-and-a-half leading the company, she remains the only woman chairman and CEO of a publicly traded homebuilder.

When she took over the CEO post in 2007, Palmer wasn't handed an enviable task, thrown into the thick of the financial crisis and housing bust.

"It wasn't the best time," she recalled in an interview with Fortune.

Palmer saw the company through the worst of the recession, and led Taylor Morrison to a successful IPO in 2013. The company hasn't slowed down since, even as new challenges crop up, from interest rates to inflation, a stretched consumer, and the threat of tariffs in an industry acutely exposed to raw material cost spikes. Its shares have outpaced the S&P 500 over the past five years, and it has exceeded recent guidance.

For the full year 2024, its home closings revenue reached $7.8 billion, up 8% year-over-year, according to its most recent earnings report. The company's 12% closings growth came in well above its initial guidance of a 4% increase, and it outperformed gross margin guidance by 100 basis points.

Palmer has also been dedicated through the years to leading by example as a company in developing a top-to-bottom organizational pipeline of female professionals. In its most recent sustainability report, Taylor Morrison reported an equal male-to-female ratio on its board of directors, the highest among homebuilding peers, and a workforce that is 44% women, four times the construction industry average of 11%, based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As long-time CEO, Palmer has bucked the statistics herself, when compared to both male and female CEO tenures – on average, about 4.5 years for women and 7 years for men, among the Fortune 500 leadership universe.

She told CNBC in a 2018 interview that nothing has come easy, and determination has been paramount for her continued success.

"You've heard the age old [adage], if a female says something it's kind of ignored and 10 minutes later it can be repeated by a male and it's the best idea since sliced bread. I just think you have to have some thick skin. I think you have to continue to realize that it's kind of a game of whack-a-mole … you just knock 'em down one at a time, but don't ever let it get the best of you and don't ever let it change who you are. That's been my motto, and it's actually worked very, very well for me."