Worcester Business Journal

10 Worcester Business Journal | February 7, 2022 | wbjournal.com W omen make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, yet their presence in leadership is still far smaller than men's. at disparity is just as pronounced in Central Massachusetts, even in female-dominated industries where the bottom and middle of the talent pipeline should have plenty of women candidates for leadership. In its annual e Boardroom Gap investigation of gender diversity in the region's business leadership, WBJ found 37% of executives and board members are women, a number unchanged from 2021. is is not just a low number for all industries studied, but it's particularly unreflective of the female- majority workforces in industries like health care, hospitality, and education. "It's never been a level playing field," said Natalie Rodriguez, owner and head chef of Nuestra restaurant in Worcester. "You have to have a strong voice and that determination, that backbone." e disproportionate number of women in the workforce compared to women in leadership reveals the many seen and unseen barriers to advancement women face, which not only limit women's career prospects and earnings potential but also create a lack of diversity in company business leadership, ultimately hurting organizations' profitability. "When you have an informal pipeline of sorts to professional development opportunities, it's going to lead into disparities of who ultimately moves through," said Desiree Murphy, senior labor and employee relations specialist at UMass Memorial Health. The Boardroom Gap findings In 2021, women made up 47% of the U.S. workforce, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Women's participation in the workforce has been impacted in the last two years by the coronavirus pandemic in a phenomenon known as e Shecession, where many women le their jobs to care for families or because they worked in frontline industries. e Mass. and Central Mass. workforces typically break down along similar lines as the nation, although updated figures aren't available for 2021 or 2022. To understand how the female workforce was being represented in leadership, WBJ determined genders of the 1,672 executives and board members who comprise the leadership at 75 prominent Central Massachusetts business organizations, in a continuation of e Boardroom Gap investigation started in 2018. e investigation found women occupy 37% of the region's business leadership positions, which ties the all-time high in the five-year study but is unchanged from last year. e percent of women leaders in the private corporations, colleges, and financial institutions studies all fell. e Boardroom Gap did find some improvements from 2021. e number of companies with zero women in leadership dropped from eight to two, and the women in leadership at public companies jumped from 19% to 26%, led by new female board members. Diversity in itself is valuable for a company. A 2019 study from McKinsey & Co. showed firms with more gender diverse executive teams were 25% more likely to experience above-average profitability, a figure which has risen incrementally from 15% in 2014. In Central Massachusetts, WBJ found 11 of the companies studied had one woman in their leadership. "When we have women who are Barriers In its annual investigation, WBJ found the percent of women in Central Mass. business leadership stagnated, as stereotypes against advancement remain BY KATHERINE HAMILTON WBJ Staff Writer PHOTO/MATT WRIGHT F O C U S W O M E N I N L E A D E R S H I P Natalie Rodriguez, owner and head chef of Nuestra restaurant in Worcester, decided to start her own restaurant after decades of frustration in the male-dominated leadership. Central Mass. higher education leaders, by gender Largest schools, by enrollment President Gender Worcester Polytechnic Institute Laurie Leshin Female Quinsigamond Community College, Luis Pedraja Male Worcester Worcester State University Barry Maloney Male Fitchburg State University Richard Lapidus Male Framingham State University Javier Cevallos Male Source: Each college via survey, colleges' websites The Boardroom Gap FIRST IN A 3-PART SERIES Continued on page 12

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