Silicon Valley may have a “gender problem” when it comes to leadership, but how bad is the problem compared to other industries?
Turns out, it is pretty bad in both cases.
9.1% of Silicon Valley board members (for public companies) were women in 2013, compared to 19.9% of public companies over all.
Law firm Fenwick & West analyzed 18 years of public filings regarding boards and management teams across the Standard & Poor 100 Index (S&P 100) and the Silicon Valley 150 Index (SV 150) to identify gender diversity and leadership trends.
The silver lining here is that both indexes saw “meaningful improvement” over time. That 9.1% is up from a dismal 2.1% in 1996.
98% of S&P 100 boards had at least one women director in 2013, and women make up an average of 20% of all S&P board members. SV 150 companies average about half that, and 43% do not have a woman director.
That said, S&P 100 companies tend to be larger and have larger boards, which makes them more likely to have at least one women director.