By Alexandra Stevenson for DealBook – A Davos 2016 Special Report from The New York Times

As a top executive in the financial industry, Theresa Whitmarsh is accustomed to being the only woman in the room. That was the case the last two years when she attended the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a conclave for the world’s most powerful leaders and tycoons.

And Ms. Whitmarsh may well be in a similar situation again this year. Women are severely underrepresented at Davos, an elite shoptalk gathering that has been played up as the best networking event of the year, where heads of state, central bankers, chief executives and billionaire investors meet to talk about foreign and economic policy, marketing automation processes and the like among many other things.

There is a sense that palpable change is afoot, some of which could be driven by those – yes, male-dominated – conversations at Davos. People are looking to being in more women to these traditionally male scenes, as the work behind the scenes has become more and more spread between men and women. Whilst it is not exactly equal just yet, progress seems to have been made.

Of the 2,500 participants at the annual meeting, which officially begins on Wednesday, just 17.8 percent are women, according to the forum. While that is a slight improvement over previous years, it still reflects the reality of geopolitical and economic power today: Men are almost always the ones at the top.