Welcome to the Zero Club Part 2

Don’t look for peers at these 50 corporate laggards. You won’t find any women among their top officers.


By James Burroughs

It’s a fact: Companies with the most women in top management have a higher return on equity (+35 percent) and a higher total return to shareholders (+34 percent) than companies with the fewest women at the top. So says a 2004 study by Catalyst.
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More than five years later, it seems like some guys – a lot of them, actually – still haven’t gotten the memo. Women hold just 15.7 percent of corporate officer positions, according to the 2008 Catalyst Census of Women Corporate Officers and Top Earners of the Fortune 500. Worse, perhaps, is the fact that 75 of the largest companies in America had no women at all among their corporate officers at the time of the survey.
 

Following PINK’s roster of the 59 largest companies with no women on their boards, the list on these pages, based on Catalyst’s study, presents in alphabetical order the 50 companies that still have no women officers. (Our list reflects changes that have occurred since the time Catalyst compiled its data.) Fifteen of these companies – the real slackers, shown in purple – have no women directors or officers.


As with our previous list, half of these companies are in manufacturing, mining or construction, where historically women have advanced in far fewer numbers than men. But others are real headscratchers. Despite the growing presence of women in information technology, for example, there still isn’t a woman officer at Apple Inc., the second-largest company in the Zero Club (annual revenue, $32.5 billion.) 
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By comparison, the company with the best record among the Top 500 is Edison International, a California electric utility (No. 205, annual revenue, $13.1 billion), where women made up 50 percent of its corporate officers at the time of Catalyst’s survey. 
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Now there’s a company that knows women equal power.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Ak Steel Corp.
Aleris International Inc.
Allegheny Technologies Inc.
Allied Waste Industries Inc. *
Apple Inc.
Applied Materials Inc.
Auto-owners Insurance Group
Blockbuster Inc.
Cameron International Corp.
Cb Richard Ellis Group
Chs Inc.
Constellation Brands Inc.
Directv Group Inc.
Dish Network Corp.
Dover Corp.
Enbridge Energy Partners Lp
Energy Future Holdings Corp.
Enterprise Gp Holdings Lp
Federal-mogul Corp.
Fidelity National Financial Inc.
Gamestop Corp.
Henry Schein Inc.
Liberty Media Corp.
The Mcgraw-hill Cos.
Mohawk Industries Inc.
National Oilwell Varco Inc.
Nucor Corp.
Nvr Inc.
Owens-illinois Inc.
Penske Automotive Group Inc.
Peter Kiewit Sons’ Inc.
Pilgrim’s Pride Corp.
Ryder System Inc.
Sanmina-sci Corp.
The Shaw Group Inc.
Slm Corp.
Smithfield Foods Inc.
Sonic Automotive Inc.
Sovereign Bancorp
Spx Corp.
Targa Resources Inc.
Tech Data Corp.
Travelcenters Of America Llc
Tribune Co.
Trw Automotive Holdings Corp.
Western Digital Corp.
Western Refining Corp.
Whirlpool Corp.
World Fuel Services Corp.

Source: 2008 Catalyst census of women board directors of the fortune 500.
* In late 2008, merged with Republic Services Inc., a company also with no women directors.

This article originally appeared in the August.September.October 2009 issue of PINK Magazine.