Who inhabits the spaces of leadership in elite universities

Vice Chancellors, Presidents, or Rectors occupy elite public leadership positions in universities. Despite the rhetoric about the importance of an inclusive and diverse workforce, the reality is that gendered and racialized organisational cultures in higher education continue to be an institutional norm. As we highlight in this chapter, there is an underpinning rhetoric of meritocracy that works as a visible and audible performative tool and renders leadership, the spaces of power, predominantly occupied by white males. The chapter presents an analysis of the biographies of the 100 Vice Chancellors, Presidents or Rectors who lead the world’s most elite universities and considers ways in which leadership in these institutions are exclusionary spaces.