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Diversity Is a Girl's Best Friend
By Walencia Konrad

Faced with growing competition for talent and client demands for diversity, American companies seek new ways to keep winning female executives.

For all the talk about diversity in the ranks of corporate executives, have women really made much progress? "The lips might be moving, but we're not seeing enough systematic change," says Virginia Clarke, head of the global diversity practice at executive recruiting firm Spencer Stuart. Adds Julie Kampf, founder and president of recruiter JBK Associates: "Some corporations want their soldiers to look exactly alike."

The result is a brain drain of talented women employees who no longer want to fight the tide. "It's not that women aren't working," says Corbette Doyle, chief diversity officer at insurer Aon Corp. "But rather they're not buying what corporate America is selling. "This is obvious when you look at how many women are self-employed or have otherwise carved out a life where they can combine the way they want to work with all the other things they want and need to do in life – whether it's kids or quilting, taking care of elderly parents or volunteering for the opera. "When it comes to creating the right environment," Doyle says, "corporate America has failed for too many women."

The numbers don't lie. Women working at the top 500 companies account for only 16.4 percent of all corporate officers and just 9.4 percent of positions above vice president, according to a 2005 census conducted by Catalyst. Women of color fare even worse, making up a scant 1.7 percent of corporate officer positions.

Read the rest of this article in the April.May issue of PINK, on newsstands now.