Fully half of the state's 400 largest public companies have no women in top executive positions, according to a study by the University of California, Davis, to be released today.
The annual UC Davis Study of California Women Business Leaders charts the progress the state's public companies have made in cracking the executive glass ceiling. That progress has been slow, said Nicole Woolsey Biggart, dean of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.
Biggart will be among those presenting the survey's findings at a 10:30 a.m. news conference today at the graduate school's Working Professional MBA Program campus, One Capitol Mall in Sacramento.
"It's a disappointment, clearly. I think it's a missed opportunity to include a more diverse pool at the top of California's corporations," Biggart said. "But, we're not going away. Once a year, we'll continue to shine a spotlight on what the top of corporations look like."
Among the findings:
• Just 13 of California's 400 largest public companies have a woman chief executive.
• Women hold 11 percent of board seats and executive positions.
• High tech, telecommunications and real estate are largely men-only domains. In the semiconductor industry, nearly 70 percent of firms have men-only boards; two-thirds are piloted by all-male executive teams.
• One-third of companies have no women in top executive posts or on governing boards.
"The big news continues to be that women are significantly underrepresented," said Donald Palmer, the professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management who led the research. University researchers used Standard and Poor's data and Securities and Exchange Commission filings during fiscal year 2007-2008 in their report.
"The $64,000 question is why does it continue to be so low?" Palmer said.
Little has changed in corporate California since the university's study debuted in 2005, but the study did show slight improvement in the number of women board members. Women occupied 10 percent of board seats, up from 9.4 percent in 2007 and 8.8 percent in 2006.
Meanwhile, familiar corporate names sit atop the list for gender equity in the executive ranks.
Los Angeles-based community and business lender Nara Bancorp leads the list for the second straight year. Half of its executive positions and board seats are held by women.
Filling out the top five:
• San Francisco-based cosmetics firm Bare Escentuals, with women in 46 percent of top leadership posts.
• Women's apparel chain Bebe Stores. The Brisbane firm has women in 43 percent of its top spots.
• San Diego-based AMN Healthcare Services, with 36 percent.
• Los Angeles-area youth apparel chain Hot Topic, at 36 percent.
But Wendy Beecham, chief executive officer of Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives, a partner in the UC Davis study, said corporate culture must continue to change.
"This is not just a California issue. It's equally as bad when you look across the U.S.," Beecham said. "We have to look at what organizations and women have to do differently. It's not about setting quotas, it's about creating a mind-set and a culture. When there's diversity of leadership, companies perform better financially."
Call The Bee's Darrell Smith, (916) 321-1040.
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