University of California Davis Survey Finds Few Women Executives in Top California Firms

A new study by researchers at the Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Davis had found that women are grossly underrepresented in executive positions at the 400 largest companies headquartered in the state. At these 400 firms, with shareholder value of more th $3 trillion, women make up less that 10 percent of top executives. At the large Silicon Valley high-tech firms, women were only 6.6 percent of top-level executives.

The study found that there were only 13 women serving as CEOs of these 400 companies. None of the companies had an all-female top leadership team. Almost half of these companies have no women on their board of directors. Another 34 percent have only one woman director.

“To compete in today’s global marketplace, successful companies need leaders from a variety of backgrounds, skills and experience to make critical strategic and operations decisions, but the lack of women in these California public companies is anything but forward-thinking,” said Steven C. Currall, dean of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. “There are many talented, highly qualified women for these top leadership positions, yet every year we see the same figures and little improvement.”

The full study can be downloaded here.