Work in progress: women look to strike a balance between C-suite and family.

• Author: Sitkin, Gigi
• Position: EXECUTIVE WOMEN

Take a gander at many a corporate photo wall and notice the number of women in the pictures. Amid the sea of navy blue blazers and patterned neck ties, where are the females? How many have risen the ranks to sit on executive boards?

True, females have emerged as viable players in business during the last few decades. But the man-to-woman ratio has barely budged in the last several years.

The percentage of women at or near the top has flat-lined in the U.S. Currently, women lead just more than 4- percent of Fortune 500 companies and 17 percent hold board seats, a mere 3 percent increase in the past 10 years.

"In general, women CEOs are still the minority." said Stephanie Klein, CEO of Experience Factor, a full-service recruitment firm in Denver. "It' still hard. I understand why a lot of women opt out. There are only so many hours in a day."

How do we rectify the absence of women leaders in corporate America? This question seems to have dominated the headlines recently as powerful women like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer have made a splash in support of success for the fairer sex.

In pouring over the list of submissions for the ColoradoBiz Top 100 Woman-Owned Companies, a sizeable slice of the total fell into the category of staffing and recruitment services, including Protiro Inc., Innovar Group, Gibson Arnold & Associates, Experience Factor, TalenTrust LLC and more. 10 til 2 caters specifically to "mothers and others." So it seemed sensible to absorb some knowledgeable perspective on where women stand as times, markets and standards continually change from the women who put us to work.

According to Sandberg, timing poses a particular problem, as the choice between the C-suite and stalling a family commonly coincides, and often somewhat inconveniently so.

After sitting out of Inc professional scene for several years to tend to their families, Jill Ater and Jodi Olin recognized how few part-time professional opportunities there were for individuals interested in family-friendly work schedules.

The dearth of options to balance life and employment was staggering, says Ater. Surely individuals of similar age and familial structures could contribute their aptitude and skill sets to enhance employers' productivity and businesses could benefit from talent on a cost-saving, part-time basis ... if only given the chance.

Sounds like a win-win. But Ater and Olin found that such opportunities were few and far between in 2003.

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