Title: California Women Business Leaders
Study: UC Davis Study of California Women Business Leaders (Curall, UC Davis 2012-13)
Finding: Women still hold fewer than one in 10 of the highest-paid executive positions and board seats at the top public firms in California.
Note about The Woman Effect Research Index: This study was performed by researchers not affiliated with InPower Women. Our Research Index includes all relevant research to the subject of women, business and power. We do not influence how the research was conducted or reported by the researchers. In our abstracts, we focus on pulling out the most actionable advice for individual women. To suggest additional research we should index, or discuss our choice of abstract focus, please contact us
InPower Insight: In in the most progressive geographies, women in leadership are not the norm.
Summary:
- There is only one woman for every nine men among directors and highest-paid executives.
- Only 13 of the 400 largest companies have a woman CEO.
- No company has an all-female (nor gender-balanced) board and management team.
- Almost half (44.8 percent) of California’s companies have no women directors;
34 percent have only one woman director. - Among counties with at least 20 companies, San Francisco County has the greatest percentage of women directors (15.5 percent) and Orange County has the least (7.7 percent). Alameda County has the most highest-paid women executives in the study, with 14.4 percent highest-paid women executives working there.
- By industry — firms in the semiconductor and software industries and those located in the Silicon Valley tended to include fewer women on the board and in highest-paid executive positions. Firms in the consumer goods sector had the highest average percentage of women directors and highest-paid executives.
- Of the best known companies in California—Apple, Google, Intel, Cisco, Visa, eBay, DIRECTV, Yahoo!, and PG&E—all had no women among their highest-paid executives at fiscal year-end.
- The 128 Silicon Valley (Santa Clara county) companies, which represent $1.2 trillion, or nearly half the shareholder value of the companies on the list, again showed the worst record for percentage of women executives. Only 6.6 percent of their highest-paid executives are women, and only 8.4 percent of Silicon Valley board members in our study are women.
Personal Coaching Tip: As a woman you cannot wait to be given an opportunity for leadership, even if you are surrounded by progressive and non-sexist people. You must take personal responsibility for your own journey into leadership positions.
Keywords: CEO, CFO, Executive position, Glass-ceiling, California, women in business, women in leadership
Guide to Women in Leadership
Organizations with women in their executive suites regularly out-perform others. Yet rising female executives (and their mentors) are frustrated at how hard it is to break through the glass ceiling. In this extensive guide, Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel into higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
