an organization devoted to increasing the number of women lawyers on corporate boards, as saying that a “multitude of factors,” including the lack of mentors or sponsors in many companies, are holding women back from directorships. Prominent tech blogger Kara Swisher,
writing on the “All T ings D” blog, certainly thinks that some of the most successful Web companies of this decade can do better. She points out that Twitter, Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, and Foursquare, taken together, have zero women directors. “What’s most remarkable,” Swisher writes,
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“is that most of these start-ups are run by what I consider enlightened and open-minded entrepreneurs, mostly young enough to be part of a generation more inclined to value equality and diversity in the workplace. In addition, each of these companies has a mas- sive base of women consumers, in some cases well over 50 percent of its audience. T us, it would seem logical that in casting about for those to help guide these companies, one or two women leaders might slip in.”
University of Chicago, says there’s a dearth of mentors “who can take other women under their wings” and pull them into the higher corporate echelons. “It has only been in the last few decades that women
have established themselves in middle management and upper management, and I think from a historical stand- point we need to saturate middle and upper management before we really are able to penetrate that last layer—the boardroom and the C-suite,” Bradshaw says. Bradshaw has just started a blog, “More Seats,” for Forbes magazine that will focus on getting women more “seats at the table” in the corporate, venture capital, political, and other arenas. Bradshaw’s blog is by no means the only ongoing eff ort
to increase the number of women on corporate boards. Direct Women, founded in 2007, focuses specifi cally on try-
ing to have women lawyers appointed as corporate board mem- bers. It describes itself as the “only program specifi cally designed to identify, develop, and support a select group of accomplished women attorneys to provide qualifi ed directors needed by the boards of U.S. companies, while promoting the independence and diversity required for good corporate governance.” Each year, Direct Women identifi es about 20 well-quali-
fi ed women lawyers from around the nation and takes them to New York for an intensive two-day seminar focused on positioning them for board slots. T e group has found some success: For example, Susan Tomansky, an energy lawyer
“ WE NEED TO SATURATE MIDDLE AND UPPER MANAGEMENT BEFORE WE ARE ABLE TO PENETRATE THAT LAST LEVEL.” —LESLIE BRADSHAW
Leslie Bradshaw, a Washington, D.C.-
based entrepreneur who was named one of the top fi ve female executives in the technol- ogy industry by Fast Company magazine in 2011, says that part of the issue is that “women start scaling down their ambitions as they think about pregnancy.” But that’s not the only factor, Bradshaw adds. In addition, Bradshaw, who studied anthropology and gender roles at the
DIVERSITY & THE BAR® SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011
who is president of AEP Transmission, was named to the board of San Antonio-based Tesoro Corp. earlier this year. Another organization, New York-based Women
Corporate Directors, brings together more than 1,000 women around the world who are directors of major companies. Earlier this year, the group issued a 10-point “Call to Action” that “challenges every leader to actively help bring more women onto corporate boards, and to build diverse boards that are multi-gender, multi-skilled, multi- national, multi-ethnic, and multi-generational.”
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