She wanted to call the two companies in Illinois that had no women.<\/p>\n
Medvec, the executive director for the Kellogg Center for Executive Women<\/a> at Northwestern University, said companies that include women on their boards end up with a higher quality board because they are pulling from a larger talent pool that includes greater diversity in experience and perspective. The center offers leadership workshops to executive-minded women and keeps a database of attendees to help board searches find qualified women.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBoards are losing a lot of quality when they don\u2019t open it up to women,\u201d Medvec said. \u201cWhether you need somebody who has experience in certain countries or people who have experience with a certain kind of distribution, you\u2019re just more likely to get that experience if you tap the full talent pool than if you cut women out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the most recent Catalyst report, which used data from October 2014 based on Standard & Poor\u2019s 500 index, two Illinois companies, CF Industries Holdings Inc.<\/a> and Stericycle Inc.<\/a>, had no women on their boards.<\/p>\n Shortly after Catalyst researchers gathered their data, CF Industries added one woman to its board, but Stericycle\u2019s board remains without a woman member. Stericycle board members were unavailable to comment prior to publication.<\/p>\n Rachel Soares, the director of research for Catalyst, said previous research studies<\/a> at her organization show quantitative benefits to having more women on corporate boards.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a correlation between having more women as your directors and leadership with important business outcomes in a financial business case but also in a broader, corporate social responsibility way: how much\u00a0money\u00a0a company donates or their corporate social performance overall,\u201d Soares said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For Medvec, as well as Catalyst researchers, the shrinking count of companies with no women on their boards has led to a growing concern that one is the new zero.<\/p>\n \u201cCompanies will put a woman on the board and kind of check their list,\u201d Medvec said. \u201cThen the companies will remain off the radar screen.\u201d<\/p>\n Based on the board member listings for Illinois S&P 500 companies in January, 32 percent, or nine of the 28 companies, have only one woman serving on boards ranging in size from nine to 24 members.<\/p>\n Illinois has the largest percentage of boards with zero women or one woman compared to states with similar counts of S&P 500 companies. While it had a comparatively large percentage of boards composed of at least 25 percent women when Catalyst researchers gathered their data, the boards have since changed, and Illinois now has the second smallest percentage.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/01\/image-2-769x1024.png\")
<\/a>![\"Illinois](\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/01\/image-1.png\")
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