The National Association for Female Executives (NAFE) named the top 50 companies for executive women, including Kraft, IBM, American Express, Marriott International and Prudential Financial.
The annual list aims to recognize companies that utilize female talent and offer policies and practices that encourage women’s advancement. To qualify, businesses were required to have at least two women on their boards and over 500 employees. Rankings were determined by female representation, hiring, attrition and promotion rates; access and use of retention and advancement programs, like mentoring and executive coaching; and manager training and accountability.
Among these 50 companies, women are 32% of top earners and 14% of chief executives, compared to the less than 3% of women running the 500 largest companies in America. Although women have long struggled to ascend the ranks in a male corporate environment, leaders are realizing the growing profitability of companies with female officers and taking action, says Betty Spence, NAFE president. “Today, employers reward the skills that women bring and demand them of men, as well.”
Among those firms spotlighted by NAFE’s top 10 list, Kraft is led by Irene Rosenfeld, named the second most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2010. Prudential Financial also ranks in the top 10, with four women on its nine-person executive team.
Here are NAFE’s top 50 companies, in alphabetical order:
Abbott – Abbott Park, Ill.
Accenture – New York, N.Y.
Aetna – Hartford, Conn.
Allstate Insurance Company – Northbrook, Ill.
American Electric Power – Columbus, Ohio
American Express Company – New York, N.Y.
AOL Inc. – New York, N.Y.
AstraZeneca – Wilmington, Del.
AT&T – Dallas, Texas
Bank of America – Charlotte, N.C.
Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceutical USA – Ridgefield, Conn
.
Bristol-Myers Squibb – New York, N.Y.
Cisco – San Jose, Calif.
Citi – New York, N.Y.
Colgate-Palmolive Company – New York, N.Y.
DuPont – Wilmington, Del.
Eli Lilly and Company – Indianapolis, Ind.
Fleishman-Hillard Inc. – St. Louis, Mo.
General Mills – Minneapolis, Minn.
HCA Virginia Health – Richmond, Va.
HSBC North America –. Mettawa, Ill.
IBM – Armonk, N.Y.
Intel – Santa Clara, Calif.
Johnson & Johnson – New Brunswick, N.J.
KPMG – New York, NY
Kraft – Northfield, Ill.
Macy’s – New York, N.Y.
Marriott International Inc. – Bethesda, Md.
McDonald’s Corporation – Oak Brook, Ill.
McKinsey & Company – New York, N.Y
.
Merck – Whitehouse Station, N.J.
MetLife Inc. – New York, N.Y.
New York Life Insurance Co. – New York, N.Y.
New York Times Company – New York, N.Y.
Northern Trust – Chicago, Ill.
Office Depot – Delray Beach, Fla.
Pfizer Inc – New York, N.Y.
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman – New York, NY
PNC Financial Services Group – Pittsburgh, Pa
.
Principal Financial Group – Des Moines, Iowa
Procter & Gamble Company – Cincinnati, Ohio
Prudential Financial Inc. – Newark, N.J.
Sodexo – Gaithersburg, Md.
State Farm – Bloomington, Ill.
Texas Instruments – Dallas, Texas
Verizon Communications Inc. – New York, N.Y.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. – Bentonville, Ark.
WellPoint, Inc. – Indianapolis, Ind.
Wyndham Worldwide – Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey
Xerox Corporation – Norwalk, Conn.
(source Forbes.com)
