The just-released 2010 Catalyst Census: Financial Post 500 Women Senior Officers and Top Earners shows that the number of FP500 public companies with 25% or more women senior officers increased 7.7 percentage points in the past two years.
Less encouraging, however, is the report’s finding that the growth of women’s overall representation in the ranks of companies’ senior officers and top earners slowed to a crawl between 2008 and 2010.
“Canadian businesses are vastly underutilizing talented women, even though women are the engine of our economies,” said Deborah Gillis, Catalyst senior vice-president.
“As organizations refuel and retool, it is in their best interest to ensure that this important segment of the employee base is developed for leadership positions. Failure to do so could mean losing opportunities for competitive advantage.”
According to this census:
- The percentage of women holding senior officer positions increased less than one percentage point over two years, from 16.9% in 2008 to 17.7% in 2010;
- Women senior officers held 6.2% of top earner positions – up less than one percentage point from 5.6% in 2008; and
- In both 2008 and 2010, more than 30% of companies had zero women senior officers.
Gillis added, “Catalyst research indicates that companies with more women senior officers on average outperform those with fewer.”