The letter also cites the number of women Amazon has in senior executive roles, compared with other tech companies, and asserts that could have an impact on how the company addresses allegations. It cited numbers from a recent New York Times story, which reported that just one of the top 16 executives (6 percent) at Amazon, known as the “S-team,” is a woman. At Apple, five of the top 19 executives listed on its website (26 percent) are women. Six of the 13 people (46 percent) on Google chief executive Sundar Pichai’s team are women, and three of the 16 executives listed on Microsoft’s website (19 percent) are female.

After examining their database of 2,800 executive evaluations globally, the Egon Zehnder team found that men tended to outscore women on five of seven competencies that companies more typically use to evaluate managers — criteria such as strategy, change management and understanding the market. Women outperformed men on collaboration and developing other individuals and teams. But women outscored men on three of the four “potential” traits — curiosity, determination and engagement — that help predict who will excel when it comes to certain skills.