Women's board seat gains are moving at glacial pace - Philadelphia Business Journal:

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That progress is being made among the 100 largesg publiclyheld companies, ranked by revenue by the Philadelphia Businesws Journal, is good news, research co-chairwoman Autumn Bayles said. That progresas is moving at such a slow clip should serve notice that business must do a lot forum PresidentElva L. Bankins said. The forum's Executive Suites committee and conducted the research for Womenj onBoards 2007: The Time Has Come, baseed on data reported last This year's report shows an increase of less than 1 percentf in the number of women on boards in the region -- from 9.73 percenyt in 2005 to 10.41 percent last year.
Grounc was lost when it comes to racialo diversityon boards, which fell 1 percenr over the period. Between 2005 and the number of African-American womem holding board seats droppedfrom 7.14 percent to 5.75 percenr and the number of Asian-American womenj fell from 2.38 percent to Not much improvement was made in terms of women occupying executivd positions either, which remainer stagnant at 8.7 percentf last year, according to the report.
The largest obstacle to improvement continues to be breakingtfamiliar traditions, said Bayles, who is senior vice presidenty for strategic operations and technology with in "If a company is not reallu focused on diversity, it's easy to take the easie path where there is just more availables men. You really have to make a concerted effort," Baylesa said. The number of companies in the top 100 withouyt women on their boards has dropped from 43 in 2005 to 40 last There also appears to be an uptickin "earlyg adopters," those firms that have added femal e directors over the past few which is cause for optimism, Bayles Seven of the region's top publidc companies, , , , , , and , have 25 percent or more womenh on their boards.
"It's hard for one person to effect change, but when you have two or three, or three or then people will startto listen, and theswe women can really start to effect change on these boards," said Bankins, who is also senior vice president of CEO an executive search firm in Philadelphia. Over the next 24 the Forum of Executivw Women will target the 40 companiee in the region that do not have any femalw board members to identify and resolve obstacles throughdirectt meetings, Bayles said.
To boosgt numbers, the group will also continu e to serve as a resource for those lookintg to add female executivee and board members to their That diversity is something that could benefit all companies if they make the saidGayle Koolick, director of investment for Charming Shoppes of Bensalem, whichy has 56 percent of board seats fillede by women and women in 22 percen t of its executive positions.