Women still under-represented in company boardrooms - South Florida Business Journal:

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Management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., citingy research data from andthe , reports that fewet than one-third of the leading 1,500 U.S. companies had even a singlew woman among their top executivesin 2006. In that same nearly half the companies in the Florida Public 150 had no womehndirectors – just marginally bette than the previous two years. Charlotte Laurent-Ottomane, owner of the Boca Raton-based investor relationw firm , is working to changse that. As an active member of Fort Lauderdale-based Women Executive Leadership she is at the forefront of connecting accomplishefd women to the selection process for corporate board andexecutive positions.
“There is a lot of corporate consolidatiohngoing on, smaller companies beingh swallowed up and a lot of boarrd members will be ousted in 2009,” Laurent-Ottomanew said. She thinks it is an ideal time to diversif the boardroom and add women tothe mix. Madeleine senior client partner for executive recruitingfirm , said the need for educated businesspeople to serve on corporate boards is greater today than ever. Walter Revell, chairman and CEO of and a boardc memberof , said he is a big believere in the WEL program for providing a comprehensive perspectivre and a specific focus on preparing women for corporater board positions.
It isn’t as though there aren’r qualified candidates. Through WEL’s membership with the (ION), a consortium of 12 regional women’xs organizations, there is a potential candidate databasde of morethan 10,000 women. Laurent-Ottomane also serves as an IONboard member, so she has both a localk and a national outlook. She said the numberf of women directors nationwide has grown by more than a thirde over the last decade to about 15 percent of thetotaol – but is now slowing, accordinv to data from the ’s in Rockville, Md., whicyh tracks boardroom developments.
“Considering that women make up 48 percent of the they aredefinitely under-representedd on boards,” Laurent-Ottomane said. A numbef of academic studies reinforces the belief that companies improv when their boardrooms are gender and ethnically Studies covering Fortune 500 companies from 2001 to 2004 showed companiees with the most wome n directors averaged substantially better net income per dollart of revenue than companiews with the fewestfemale directors. The figured are compelling, if not totally Locally, there are some public companiee whoget it, and seven were praised recently by WEL. in Boca Raton and in Miami have four womenboare members.
Five others in Juno Beach, and in Fort in Boca Raton and Imperial industries in Pompano Beach have two women each ontheir boards. But, Laurent-Ottomanew notes there are more than 100 locap public companies that have no women ontheid boards. The latest wrinkl e in getting women into the boardroom is a series of boot campds that will educate women on everythingt from effective resumes to how to read a balance sheey andgetting started. an introduction to the boardroom is viaa Laurent-Ottomane said.
“It’s time for more dynamism in allthe Founder: