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Promoting Board Diversity

There are very few women among the top compensated executive officers in the nation's largest public companies, suggest findings of the latest report by the InterOrganization Network (ION), a network of organizations in the U.S. comprising senior business and professional women, who have joined forces to advocate the advancement of women in the business world to positions of power. According to the report, 72% of the companies in nine of the ten U.S. regions tracked by ION, no women were listed among their top-compensated executive positions. In addition, the number of companies without women in the top compensated executive officer ranks exceeded the number of companies with no women executive officers, suggesting that even at the highest levels of corporate leadership the top- paying positions are still primarily filled by men. This year's report also indicates that there has been little progress in electing women to the boards of America's largest public companies: suggesting that for every gain reported, there seems to be a loss. Few companies have included enough women on their boards to fully benefit from true diversity. "Shareholder activists have proven time and time again that action gets results. We believe that gender diversity in corporate leadership will not occur until CEOs, board chairs, lead directors, nominating chairs and other board members feel pressure to call for change. Therefore, ION is calling on all shareholders to use their proxies to promote board diversity," says Toni Wolfman, president of ION and Executive in Residence at the Women's Leadership Institute at Bentley College. The report also observes that there is mounting evidence that corporate leaders are beginning to listen to shareholders on a variety of governance issues including board diversity, and even the voices of small investors are now being heard.