Few Woman Serve As CEOs

Though women make up half the population, very few are chief executive officers of corporations, 10TV’s Tracy Townsend reported on Friday.

New research found that more women than ever hold senior corporate positions and have the possibility to ascend to the top position.

Kara Trott, chief executive officer of The Quantum Health, said that she paved her own way to the top.

"Actually, I founded the company, so that's how I got that way," Trott said. "Being a CEO has gotten a lot of attention for the company because it's so novel."

Trott is part of a very exclusive club.  Only 35 of Fortune 1,000 companies are run by women, Townsend reported.

That might be about to change. A new study done for the Wall Street Journal found that a quarter of 58 large companies have women as senior vice presidents -- in line to crack the glass ceiling.

"More women will be accelerating into board positions and taking on that mantle of leadership," Trott said.

Capital University professor Andrea Thomas said that a decade ago, many businesses began to offer women additional benefits, such as on-site daycare or flex time, to get more promising women to stay in the workplace.

"Our culture hasn't really embraced it. And so, people don't take advantage of these things," Thomas said. "And if you do use them, you're considered less serious about your work."

Thomas said that a woman has to be serious to be promoted. She said that American culture values hard work. 

"We admire people who work really hard and put work above everything,” Thomas said. ‘What we have to do is change the culture."

To help women climb ti top levels in business, Trott said, women need a mentor or a support group, like Women Presidents’ Organization, for guidance and training.

"There's a lot of things about being a CEO that you can't learn from a textbook," Trott said.

But Thomas said that too many women do not want to make the sacrifice it takes to put work above family, something that many traditional companies expect from top managers.

"Until we chip away at that, I don't think we're going to see this influx of women at the, at the top," Thomas said.

According to Catalyst.org, which tracks women in the workplace, only 14 percent of America's largest companies have women as senior officers.

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