Corporate governance reform has been a hot topic for a number of years. Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the media, and large shareholders have been pressuring corporations to improve their governance. In the face of the public failure of companies such as Enron and WorldCom, some boards have been accused of being asleep or at least acquiescent, often focusing on short-term earnings and permitting runaway CEO compensation. While many companies are demanding more competent directors, the traditional pool of directors is no longer adequate to meet the need for independent, outside board members required by Sarbanes-Oxley and other reform guidelines – particularly since CEOs are limiting the number of boards on which they serve. Nominating committees and search firms are enlarging the scope of their search for
qualified directors and dipping into new pools of candidates, including women. Yet some of the largest companies still have no women directors, and of those that do, only a small percentage have more than two women directors. The most recent Catalyst report (2005
Catalyst Census of Women Board Directors of the Fortune 500) indicated that women held only 14.7 percent of all Fortune 500 board seats. Among the Fortune 500 companies, 53 still had no women on their boards, 182 had one woman, 189 had two, and only 76 had three or more women directors.
