A long, steady focus on diversity.

• Author: Kristie, James
• Position: Women directors survey

I WAS GLAD TO SEE our Heidrick & Struggles authors address the topic of board diversity in this edition ("So Many Public Companies, so Few Women Directors," page 61). DIRECTORS & BOARDS from its very inception has been a champion of board diversity, and as longtime readers of this journal know it's been a topic close to the top of our editorial agenda.

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I just wish there were more to show for all the ink that's been devoted to addressing board diversity. The percentage of women directors has been stubbornly stuck in a mid-teen range for years. In the Heidrick & Struggles article, the authors report that women occupy 16.2 percent of Fortune 100 board seats. The 2006 Board Diversity Report just released by Spencer Stuart similarly finds that 16 percent of the 2,357 directors of the top 200 S & P 500 companies are women.

Parsing the representation into sublevels can be even more revealing of the progress yet to be made. The InterOrganization Network, seven regional organizations throughout the United States that advocate the advancement of women in business, shows in its recently released report that in 2005:

--women held fewer than 8 percent of board seats in Florida and Georgia, two states that include all public companies in their surveys.

--women held only 14 percent of board seats in Chicago, where the sample includes the highest number and proportion of large companies.

--the percentage of companies with no women...