Can you hear the glass ceiling

cracking a bit?
By L.M. Sixel
January 29, 2014 Updated: January 29, 2014 11:22pm

For more than two decades, executive search firm Spencer Stuart has
studied the makeup of corporate boards. Each year, the story was
remarkably similar: Few women were serving as corporate directors in
Houston despite the national trend of more women joining big public
company boards.
Houston still lags, according to the latest survey, which was released
this week. But it's showing signs of catching up to the national
average.
During the past year, 14 women were added to the boards of 86
companies examined in Houston. Spencer Stuart chose the companies

because they're headquartered in the Houston area, publicly traded on

one of the major stock exchanges and included in the Houston
Chronicle's list of top 100 companies. That new influx in one year
boosted the percentage of female board members to 11.9 percent, from
8.2 percent in 2012, according to Spencer Stuart.
But Houston boards still significantly lag the S&P 500, where 18
percent of its directors are women.
But Houston is making real progress, said Jeffrey Hyler, managing
director of the Houston office of Spencer Stuart.
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"We have an almost universal mandate from clients for a very diverse
slate" of board candidates, he said. Nearly every client wants highquality female candidates among its choices.
They recognize the value of diversity, Hyler said.
Local vs. S&P 500
Sixty-one percent of companies in the Houston area have at least one
woman director, according to Spencer Stuart's tally of proxy
statements. Nineteen percent have two or more.

By comparison, 93 percent of the S&P 500 companies have at least

one female director while 66 percent have two or more.
Houston has been slow to add women in part because its economy is
dominated by energy and large industrial companies.
Those sectors are traditionally male-dominated, which has made the
candidate pool fairly shallow, Hyler said. But that is changing as more
women move into the senior executive levels, he said.
While sitting CEOs are highly sought after as board candidates, most
companies restrict their executives to one outside board, he said.
Consequently, most newly recruited board members are recently
retired executives, Hyler said. They have plenty of time to devote to a
board, yet they're up to date in their area of expertise.
Retirements to help
Hyler said he believed the number of female board members will grow
as more female executives start to retire.
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When Waste Management went looking for a new board member last
year, it didn't look solely at female candidates.
"But the fact we have a woman is a positive because it deepens the
diversity of the board," company spokeswoman Jennifer Andrews
said.
Victoria Holt, president and chief executive officer of Spartech Corp.,
joined the board, making her the only woman, but not the first, on the
eight-member board, according to Spencer Stuart's data.
Waste Management wanted Holt's experience in environmental
services and recycling, Andrews said. Her international business
experience was also a plus.
"We've come a long way," said Jamie Belinne, assistant dean of the
C.T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston.
She remembered the 1980s when a major oil and gas company - she's
not saying which one - didn't even have a ladies room on the executive
floor. If they wanted to go to the bathroom, women had to take the
elevator to the floor below.
'An embarrassment'
A combination of factors has boosted the career trajectory of women,
including shining a light on the fact that so many companies had no
women in their boardrooms, Belinne said.

"It became a bit of an embarrassment," she said.

Belinne attributed the rise in the number of female board members to
seismic changes at the workplace. She said she believes it's not a
coincidence that companies are more focused on how corporate
policies, from transfers to compensation to work schedules, affect
family life.
Many energy companies, for example, have shifted to compressed
work schedules such as "9/80s" where employees work 80 hours in
nine rather than 10 days. And telecommuting has become much more
common, she added.
Sometimes it's a simple fix, Belinne said, recalling the oil and gas
services company that was having trouble recruiting female field
engineers.
The solution? Putting locks on the bathroom doors out in the oil field
to make the women feel more comfortable.