Wayne State University Study Shows Little Progress for Women in Michigan’s Top Public Corporations

A new study by faculty members at the Ilitch School of Business at Wayne State University in Detroit finds that women hold a small percentage of leadership positions at the 100 largest public corporations in Michigan. Among the findings in the report are:

• Only 15 percent of all members of the board of these 100 companies are women.
• Women make up 13 percent of all executive officers at these firms.
• Only 9 percent of the highest-paid executives at these companies are women.
• Nearly a third of the 100 largest firms have no women directors and 56 have only one or two.
• Nearly half of the top 100 companies have no women in executive positions and 36 have just one.
• The number of women executives in these firms has dropped over the past 10 years.

Sherilyn J. Perelli, a professor of management and co-author of the report, stated that “while we are encouraged by the increase of women on the boards of several Fortune 500 companies over the last decade that hasn’t moved the needle much for women overall. They remain vastly underrepresented at the highest levels of leadership in the overwhelming majority of Michigan companies, nearly 90 percent of which have no or only a symbolic representation of one or two women on their boards or in their corporate suites.”

The authors conclude that “women remain a vastly underused source of leadership talent in our state.”

The full study, Women’s Leadership in Michigan Top Public Companies, 2007-2017: A Call for Championship, may be downloaded by clicking here.