More women in Chicago’s board rooms

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Women’s representation in the board rooms and executive suites of Chicago’s biggest companies has hit the highest level ever, a report from the Chicago Network shows.

Women hold 15.3 percent of all director positions, up from 14.1 percent. The number rose to 85 from 77--the biggest one-year-increase and the highest level ever.

The percentage of women directors out of all new directors more than doubled to 29.5 percent from 14 percent while the number of companies with no women directors fell to five from seven, the report shows.

Women executive officers rose to 15.8 percent from 14.9 percent, and the number of companies with no women executive officers fell to 13 from 17.

The report is based on fiscal year 2009 proxy filings from the Chicago metropolitan area’s 50 largest publicly traded companies by revenue.

“This year even though the numbers aren’t as big as we would like, they are meaningfully different,” said Michelle Collins, chair of the network’s 2010 Census Committee. “We were able to make some progress. It feels like the momentum is certainly in the right direction.”

Leaders at the top performing companies understand the business case for diversity, and top women executives within corporations have helped open the door for other women to enter, representatives said of the results.

“It reflects the rise of women through the leadership ranks in major corporations over time and the recognition that a diverse C-suite and board actually adds to the performance of the board and management,” said Kate Bensen, executive director of the Chicago Network.

The report wasn’t all good news. The percentage of new women executive officers out of all new executive officers fell for the second year to 13.3 percent from 17 percent, and the percentage of women top earners stayed flat at 7.7 percent. And while 13.2 percent of women executive officers are women of color, up from 11.8 percent, just 17.5 percent of women directors were minority women, down from 19.5 percent.

“Women are 50 percent of the population so there’s still an under representation of what is possible,” said Collins, who is also president of Chicago-based Cambium, a financial advisory and management consulting firm.

New U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules requiring the nation’s publicly traded companies to disclose to shareholders whether they have a diversity policy for identifying and nominating directors and how they monitor those policies should help bring greater board diversity going forward, Bensen said.

“Board service is requiring increasing amounts of time and responsibility, which means companies are not going to be able to look to the same small pool of people” to fill board seats, she added.

Companies are also placing limits on how many outside boards their chief executive officers can serve on. These situations are “going to cause companies to look more broadly when they’re filling board slots,” Bensen said.

The top ranked company in the report was Corn Products International. Women make up 30 percent of its directors, 44.4 percent of its executive officers and 40 percent of its top earners. Also among the top five cited in the report were Allstate Corp., Kraft Foods Inc., Jones Lang LaSalle and Northern Trust Corp.

Companies ranked at the bottom were CNA Financial Corp. and LKQ Corp. which had no women represented among directors, executive officers or top earners. U.S. Cellular Corp. was also cited among those at the bottom with no women in those categories, but the company last year named Mary Dillon as its CEO and a director. Also named among the five worst were Molex Inc. and Old Republic International.

U.S. Cellular spokeswoman LaTrina Blair Shepherd said Dillon is the first female CEO in the wireless industry, and noted the company has seven female officers out of 19, including six vice presidents who are women, although none are minority.

“We are focused on continuing to increase our diverse representation in the future,” Shepherd said.

CNA spokeswoman Katrina Parker said the company has “dozens of women who serve at the “VP and higher level and those are high ranking top earning positions.”

LKQ, Molex and Old Republic International did not return calls for comment.