Knowledge Center

Excuse me? On what grounds Joe? This is revolutionary. This is reality. I am so grateful to have role models beyond women in magazines and television shows. Thank you for sharing this Catalyst.

I think it's great!! Was able to send this to my gf who keeps complaining about no women being in leading roles. Especially since most of those companies are the leaders in both defense technology, mass production, and information technologies. Pretty key for the economy. Gots to get me a sugar momma!

How is this great exactly? You're glad because you can prove to your girlfriend that there are leaders in giant corporations that are women...... 24 OUT OF 500! 4.8%! That is dismal number.

Gwen - you are a moron, sorry. Alho you math is correct, what you don't understand is that this is a 1000% increase in the last 25 years. Not enough for you? You need to have "equality" in the boardrooms to prove women are equal to men even tho they are clearly not up to task? Compared to peers, female CEOs are dismal failures, sorry.

Ted: you are a pathetic excuse to be commenting. Women in positions of power are dismal failures? I feel that gender has zero to do with performance and everything to do with the equality issue at hand. You are most likely an unsuccessful person in the business world. You seem to be the moron here.

Gwen is a moron, yet you can't spell.........hum....ok.

I know right. I hardly understood what he commented.

Found this interesting article on the 'glass cliff' which points out that some women CEOs fail because they were put into the position when the situation is dire....in other words, doomed to failure. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/world/europe/glass-cliff-uk-women-politics.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_nn_20161007&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=76142546&_r=0

4.6% is not high enough, but the effort to keep going is critical.

Ted compared to peers, you are a dismal failure. Women and men are the exact same, there is no difference between the two genders. Woman and men are no different, their actions are just perceived differently. Most people have accepted the fact that women don't have enough higher postitions in the government and are working to change that. Apparently you are doing just the opposite. I hope you are having a great time working against equality you sexist moron.

Thank you Gwen, its a given most of the female selections are motivated by political correctness and not performance !

Then maybe women should do better

Why do you care?

Your gf is right.... Only 4% of the CEOs in the S&P 500 are women. This list only proves we have a long way to go. She's allowed to continue complaining :)

I think (or at least I hope) he was referring to the fact that women only hold 4% of ceo positions and I agree. That number is outrageous and disgusting

How so? There is nothing disgusting about it. You are seeing change for the better, that women are being considered for the top jobs. They aren't just going to give 250 of the male CEOs the boot and replace them with females. That's not equality. Equality means that when a CEO position becomes vacant, that every capable candidate gets their fair shot regardless of gender.

I love your statement. As a woman I am so tired of hearing women complain about not getting a fair shake. If a woman can't meet the requirements of a job that a man does, why do we always need to yell gender inequality!?

No these companies are not smart if they over look a overqualified male partner to insert a female just because she will cry about it if they do not choose her.

Sad situation.

I am happy to see women are beginning to get a leg up in the cut throat world of business, but I want to see them do it on their own with knowledge and class...not because they have tits and a vagina.

You really believe that these billion-dollar businesses, for whom the most important thing is success (i.e. continuing to make billions of dollars...) hand over CEO positions to women instead of supposedly more-qualified men, so that said women won't "cry about it"? That seems highly unlikely. Pretty sure these women got to where they are because they were considered to be the best candidates.

This information needs to get out to the public more. Especially because of the presidential race.

Very true, but when it comes to becoming a C-level executive, hard skills are important, but soft skills are even more important. Soft skills are not easily measurable. As a new CEO is being appointed, soft skills are identified on the basis of personal relationships, how easily the candidate can connect with subordinates, peers, clients, collaborators, the company's board.

As a result, sometimes guys go up the ladder because they can talk about sports, play golf, and do all the other "guy" stuff that the company's, its clients' and its collaborators' male-dominated status quo is doing.

Traditionally they were male dominated. Fine. This is changing. Wonderful. However, the strong need for personal connections and the tradition of these connections being around "guy stuff", give guys an unfair advantage over women.

Additionally, how well you lead depends on how well you are heeded. Whenever a company has a majority of guy leaders who decide their female CEO isn't good enough, they will be predisposed to not obeying. She can't very well fire the entire leadership team, but if they are not somehow dealt with, their disobedience will make her a failed leader. Such resistance is less likely with a new male CEO.

So, no. It is a LOT better today than a few years ago, but it is NOT equal. For a woman to be selected as a CEO, she currently needs to be far far better than her male counterparts. For her to be successful, she has to work much harder than them. This fits the pattern of a minority gaining ground, not of equality.

Im pretty sure he is agreeing with you.

I agree with Joe's choice of words. I'm not sure if he and I have the same sentiment and you just misunderstood, or if he was being mean, but:

23 women in the S&P 500 means 23 women among 477 men. Women make up approximately 50% of the population, but under 5% of the corporate leaders! THAT is outrageous.

Who do you think is to blame for that difference? Is it because men are not allowing smart, capable, experienced women go to school, apply for jobs, start their own businesses or is it that women generally don't have the interest in doing those kind of things, or maybe don't all take the steps in order to get there? It CAN be done, (Hillary, Meg Whitman, Janet Reno, etc...) some do, but ALL of us men don't get there. I never broke through that "glass ceiling", or even saw it. I have had several women bosses, because they were SMARTER than me and could do things i cannot. No glass ceiling, no sexism, just hard work. How about that?

but there are so little!

I agree he is a misogynist. i believe all women should be able to be leaders.

dude... really? Wake up from whatever dream your're in.

i think you mean you are

It is amazing ,our women are really on top of the game these days.I really agree with you.Nancy Solomon I fancy you a lot hope to contact you for a good deal

Studies show men are promoted on potential, not proven capabilities. Women first have to be given the opportunity, and exposure to this type of business climate to effectively handle this business climate. Let's talk buying power by the year 2050 women of color will be a 53% majority in this country with Latina women in the lead African American women next, third Asian American women, wouldn't it make sense to begin training this segment of human capital so the United States remains competitive?

I'm looking for the same statistic. We're you able to get the number?

Excerpt from article at InfoPlease: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womenceo1.html#ixzz3TpQTvPHA

But although women make up over half of America's labor force, as of 2009, only 12 Fortune 500 companies and 25 Fortune 1000 companies have women CEOs or presidents.

Catalyst, the not-for-profit New York-based women's research organization, points out that its data shows a change over the last ten years. In 1998, 11.2% of corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies were women. This percentage rose to a peak of 16.4% by 2005, but has since fallen and in 2008 it rested at 15.7%. While this is progress, Catalyst notes that, at this rate, it would take 40 years for the number of female corporate officers to match the number of male officers.