6212: Windy City Women Need Windex.

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Glass ceiling endures at Chicago firms
Study | A third of biggest companies here have no female top execs

By Francine Knowles

While women make up 15 percent of directors at Chicago’s 50 largest publicly traded companies, the highest percentage ever in an annual report, one-third of companies still have no women executive officers.

That’s according to the 2008 Chicago Network Census, which tracks women’s progress in moving into the highest ranks of Chicago’s biggest corporations.

It found that women directors increased to 15 percent from 14.3 percent in 2007, but that was due primarily to shrinking board sizes. Meanwhile, the percentage of board members who are women of color slipped to 3.1 percent from 3.5 percent, while the number of executive officers edged up to 1.6 percent from 1.3 percent.

The report, based on fiscal 2007 proxy filings, also found:

• Six companies have no women directors, up from four.

• The percentage of women executive officers rose to 14.4 percent from 14 percent after falling for two straight years.

• The number of companies with no women executive officers grew by 4 to 16.

• The number of companies with no women among the top earners rose to 36 from 31.

Hewitt Associates Inc., Kraft Foods Inc. and Sara Lee Corp. were recognized as companies where women made up 25 percent or more of the board members.

Also cited were firms where more than 25 percent of the executive officers were women: Baxter International Inc., Corn Products International Inc., Discover Financial Services, Hewitt, Kraft, NiSource Inc., Northern Trust Corp. and UAL Corp.

The worst-performing companies were U.S Cellular Corp., Metal Management Inc. and CNA Financial Corp., which had no women directors, executive officers or top earners. Also making that list was Unitrin Inc. and Old Republic International Corp., which each had only one women director, comprising 8.3 percent of each of their boards.

Studies have shown that companies with the highest levels of diversity are the strongest financial performers, said Eva Losacco, census chair and president of Tecsolv, a Lake Forest-based technology consulting company.