Ceiling

Where Are the Women?
Minnesota’s top companies bypass opportunities for transformational change.
By Rebecca Hawthorne, Ph.D., and Joann Bangs, Ph.D.
Slight improvements
Racial diversity in Minnesota board appointments presents
an area of limited progress — two additional companies
added women directors of color to their boards in
2011. Sixteen women directors of color currently serve
across 14 Minnesota companies. They hold 2 percent of
the available board seats across Minnesota’s 100 largest
publicly held companies.
No Women on Board
Minnesota companies that include no women corporate
directors or women executive officers (Section 16b) on
their corporate leadership teams include the following:
Aetrium Inc.
Angeion Corp.
Company
John J. Pollock*
CEO
Gregg O. Lehman
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Rebecca Hawthorne, Ph.D.
A lingering financial crisis has illuminated the results of
poor corporate governance — high-risk investments, shortsighted
decision making and a narrow view of stakeholders.
Despite the documented benefits to improved governance
gained by appointing women to corporate leadership roles,
little has changed across the state of Minnesota.
A limited number of senior executive women serve on
the corporate boards and work in the executive suites of
Minnesota’s largest 100 publicly held companies.
The 2011 Minnesota Census of Women in Corporate Leadership
reveals squandered opportunities and uneven progress
in diversifying Minnesota public company corporate
leadership over the past year.
Squandered opportunities
Fifty independent directors were appointed to corporate
boards governing Minnesota’s 100 largest public companies
in 2011. Only five of the 50, or 10 percent, of new independent
directors appointed in Minnesota were women.
Each of these 50 appointments represented a unique opportunity
to gain competitive advantage by diversifying a board
through the appointment of a highly qualified woman.
Joann Bangs, Ph.D.
Research shows that increasing gender diversity on
corporate boards by appointing women directors improves
board ability to fulfill both control and strategic
responsibilities. And yet in Minnesota, the total
percentage of new board seats awarded to women in
2011 was 10.4 percent of all available appointments, a
precipitous drop from the 19.4 percent of new appointments
secured by women in 2010.
Minnesota companies continue to squander the competitive
advantage of diverse governance. The net result: no progress.
Women continue to hold 14.2 percent of the
board seats of Minnesota’s 100 largest publicly
held companies.
The percentage of women corporate directors has
not noticeably changed since the Census began
collecting data in 2008.
Only 14 percent of Minnesota’s top companies
have any women directors of color.
Nineteen of the state’s top 100 public companies
have no women on their boards or in their executive
suites.
Given the evidence-based business case for diversity
in the boardroom, the documented public acceptance
of women in corporate leadership roles and the highly
qualified pool of candidates, the lack of progress is
striking. And, it can be remedied.
Nationwide, women directors of color comprise a very
small percentage of corporate directors, topping at 2.9
percent. The 86 Minnesota companies with no women
directors of color offer great room for improvement.
On a more positive note: Minnesota companies showed
significant progress in 2011 in the increase of women executive
officers (Section 16b). Women hold 17.4 percent
of the available executive officer positions, an increase of
one percentage point over 2010.
This percentage reflects both an increase in the number of
women executive officers as well as a decrease in the total
number of available positions. The economic recession has
impacted company hiring at all corporate levels, and the
“mancession” — a trend of higher unemployment among
men than women — is reflected in the Census data.
Despite the loss of executive officer positions, the total
number of women executive officers increased in 2011.
Eight companies reported a net increase in women executive
officers in 2011. This encouraging trend suggests
progress in diversifying corporate leadership teams — at
least in the executive suite.
Leading the Way
Target Corp. is one of only two Minnesota companies —
the other being MTS Systems Corp. — that has achieved
Special Distinction status on the Honor Roll (see page
14) for all four years of the Census.
Gregg Steinhafel,
Target chairman,
president and
CEO
Broadview Institute Inc.
Digi International Inc.
Digital Angel Corp.
Electromed Inc.
Image Sensing Systems Inc.
Insignia Systems Inc.
IntriCon Corp.
Lakes Entertainment Inc.
MOCON Inc.
Multiband Corp.
Nortech Systems Inc.
Northern Technologies Intl. Corp.
Rimage Corp.
Rochester Medical Corp.
Stratasys Inc.
Jeffrey D. Myhre
Joseph T. Dunsmore
Joseph J. Grillo
Robert D. Hansen
Kenneth R. Aubrey
Scott F. Drill
Mark S. Gorder
Lyle A. Berman
Robert L. Demorest
James L. Mandel
Michael J. Degen
G. Patrick Lynch
Sherman L. Black
Anthony J. Conway
S. Scott Crump
Winland Electronics Inc. In transition as of June 30, 2011
WSI Industries Inc.
Michael J. Pudil**
*Replaced by Joseph C. Levesque on November 28, 2011
**Replaced by Benjamin T. Rashleger on January 1, 2012
That means 30 percent or more of its executive officers and
30 percent or more of its corporate directors are women.
“At Target, diversity is an all-in commitment that extends
from our sales floor to our boardroom,” says Gregg
Steinhafel, Target chairman, president and CEO. “We
believe diversity, including gender diversity, is vital in
understanding and serving our guests and in making
Target a great place to work. We’ve consciously developed
a diverse, independent and balanced board and
executive team, with strong women directors and executives
whose perspectives are invaluable to Target.”
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
LEARN MORE View this year’s report online, as well as the past three years of The Minnesota
Census of Women in Corporate Leadership, at mncensus.stkate.edu.
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