The Lack Of Women In Silicon Valley Is Apparent In Facebook’s Recent Appointments

We knew there weren’t a lot of women in Silicon Valley but new research has shown us how weak these numbers are.  Plus on top of that, yesterday it was announced that Facebook, where the queen of Silicon Valley Sheryl Sandberg works, did not appoint one woman in its reorganization of product leads which opened up five new positions. Way to rub some salt in the wound!

The new research from the UC Davis Graduate School of Management in partnership with Watermark, found a disappointing picture of female representation on the boards and in the executive suites of high-profile companies in California, which together represent nearly $3 trillion in shareholder value. Women still hold fewer than one in 10 of the highest-paid executive positions and board seats at the top public firms in California — a rate that has improved by just 0.2 percent annually. Here are some more staggering statistics:

• More than one-third, or 136 (34%), of the 400 companies had no women among their board directors or highest-paid executives.
• No company had an all-female board or executive management team.
• More than 40% of the 136 companies that tied for last place, with no women executives or board members, are high-tech companies.
• Only 13 public companies had a woman CEO, down from 16 in 2010.
• The software and semiconductor sectors have the lowest percentages of women among the five highest-paid executives in a company, with 4.4% and 2.7%, according to the study. On average, fewer than one in 28 of the highest-paid tech executives is a woman.

“This is a place where technology companies are way behind,” said Marilyn Nagel, chief executive of Watermark. One of the contributing factors to this issue is that these companies often look for board members who have been chief executives of other tech companies, and just 3% of tech chief executives are women, so that would be difficult. She says, instead, they should broaden their search to look for women in other senior positions at tech companies or chief executives in other sectors, she said. “Tech companies don’t always focus on building the pipeline of women, and so there are not women who are moving up as rapidly. There are not programs in place to ensure that women take a seat at the table in the uppermost echelons of business,” Nagel said.

It should be noted that a few companies are doing their part.  Advent Software is the No. 2 company on the study’s list of the top California companies in terms of women leaders. Thirty-six percent of its executives and directors are women, including the chief executive, Stephanie DiMarco. Hewlett-Packard is No. 6, with 35 percent women executives, including the chief executive, Meg Whitman. Yahoo is the only other tech company in the top 25, with 27% women leaders, though its CEO, Carol Bartz, recently left.

And tech companies aren’t the only ones in California sporting weak female numbers. According to the annual UC Davis Study of Women Business Leaders, it will take more than 100 years to catch up with their male counterparts. Women have top jobs at fewer than one in 10 in the 400 largest public companies in California, the report found, a rate that has improved by only 0.2% a year.“Having more women involved at the highest levels of business management and corporate governance brings greater diversity of thinking styles, industry knowledge, educational background and career experience, yet we continue to find disappointingly small proportions of women in leadership roles in what is widely regarded as a progressive, trend-setting state,” said Steven Currall, dean of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, in a statement.

As for advice on this problem, well there are a lot of things companies need to work on. But to be short and sweet Marissa Mayer, a woman who has succeeded in Silicon Valley, says, the most important thing for women in technology is to make sure they are genuinely passionate about technology. In other words they need to be a geek. She considers herself to just be a geek working at Google, not a woman in technology working at Google.

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