Breaking into the boys' club.

• Position: Women chief executive officers of North Carolina's 100 largest private companies

Judging from the CEOs of the North Carolina 100, business in the Tar Heel State remains mostly the domain of white males.

Four of the private-company CEOs are women, which is four more than the number of female top executives at the state's 75 largest publicly owned companies. Each of the four -- Annabelle Fetterman of The Lundy Packing Co. of Clinton; Ann Heafner Gaither of Lincolnton-based J.H. Heafner Co.; Jasie Barringer of Greensboro-based R.H. Barringer Distributing Co. and Dale Halton of Pepsi Cola Bottling Company of Charlotte -- is an heir of the company's founder.

One member of a minority made the private list, Dennis Lowery, a Lumbee Indian from Robeson County who founded Charlotte-based Continental Industrial Chemicals in 1975. Dennis Gillings of Quintiles Transnational Corp. is British, while at least two other CEOs are naturalized citizens: N.S. Jagannathan of Tolaram Fibers of Charlotte and Neil MacPherson of Greensboro-based MacPherson/Meistergram.

The North Carolina 100's large contingent of...