The movement to include women in the C-suite has hit a milestone, of sorts: All S&P 500 Index companies now have at least one woman on their boards of directors.
As reported by HR Dive.com, the last holdout, Copart Inc., appointed Diane Morefield, chief financial officer at CyrusOne Inc., to its board last week.
“The scarcity of women at the top is a wide segment of the broader gender gap, and one can grow wider the higher up women rise in organizations,” according to writers Kathryn Moody and Valerie Bolden-Barrett. “However, the Women Tech Council released a report in May that identified an uptick in executive engagement, other women in leadership roles and diversity and inclusion policies as three practices helping to close the leadership gender gap in its industry.”
NJBIA has worked to help women move into leadership positions with its Women Business Leaders Network and events like the Sept. 20 Women Business Leaders Forum. The idea has been to help women in business develop the skills necessary to move into the C-suite and onto corporate boards.
Earlier this year, Heidrick & Struggles International Incorporated said two out of every five board seats filled at Fortune 500 companies in 2018 went to women, the highest percentage of female appointees in the 10-year history of the company’s Board Monitor report. The total share of seats held by women was still only 22.5%, however, a mere increase of 0.3% from the prior year.
