Women Occupying More Director Seats

Director seats held by women at the nation’s largest 500 companies rose last year to 10.6 percent of the total, although the rate of increase slowed compared with previous years, according to a census conducted by Catalyst, a nonprofit women’s research group based in New York.

Catalyst said its survey showed progress in several broad measures. For example, of the Fortune 500 companies, 84 percent have a woman on their board, compared with 69 percent in 1993, the first year of the Catalyst survey.

The survey also found 181 companies, or 36 percent, of the Fortune 500 have two or more female directors. Of those, 31 companies have three or more.

“There has been a very impressive increase over five years,” said Sheila Wellington, Catalyst’s president. “But clearly the rate of increase is slowing, and that is regrettable.”

For the first time, Catalyst turned up a large company with at least an equal number of men and women directors: the Golden West Financial Corp., a savings and loan in Oakland, Calif., which has five women directors and four men.

Herbert M. Sandler, who shares the titles of chairman and chief executive of Golden West with his wife, Marion O. Sandler, said in an interview he is perplexed by the dearth of women in board rooms.

“We don’t understand the issue,” Herbert Sandler said. “In our acquaintances, women are clearly as bright and able as men.”

Industries that have the highest percentage of board seats held by women include cosmetics, savings institutions, publishing and toys, Catalyst found. Industries with the lowest percentage of board seats held by women include airlines, computer software, securities, food services, and engineering and construction.

Catalyst said 81 companies of the Fortune 500, or 16 percent, have no women on their boards. Wellington said there was only one conclusion to be drawn about those companies: “It must be that the CEO’s sense of what a woman’s experience and perspective can bring to a board has to be limited.”

Besides Golden West Financial, companies with five female directors include the College Retirement Equities Fund and the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association. Catalyst found six companies with four women on their boards: Avon Products, Aetna, Fannie Mae, Gannett, Hasbro and Principal Financial.

Catalyst also found a direct correlation between a company’s size and the likelihood that it would have women as board members. In dividing the Fortune 500 into five groups of 100, for example, 61 percent of the largest group have more than one female director, while only 26 percent of the companies in the smallest group have more than one.

For the first time, Catalyst analyzed the occupations of female directors. It found 27 percent come from corporate America itself, 16.2 percent come from academia, 14.9 percent are entrepreneurs and business owners, and 13.5 percent work in a nonprofit organization or a foundation. Retirees and other professionals accounted for the rest.

Catalyst also found that companies in the Northeast were the most likely to have at least one woman on the board, followed by companies in the Midwest, and those in the South. Companies based in the West were the least likely, Catalyst said.

Although the overall percentage of women as directors remained low, Wellington said she expected it to grow more quickly as more women, particularly those in greater numbers of corporate positions, were recruited to boards.

“There is going to be another big jump,” Wellington said.

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