Rate of Female Board Members Slows at Firms

Nearly one-fifth of Fortune 500 companies don’t have female directors and typically have all men in top jobs, according to a group that says such companies are missing the creative edge needed to compete.

While more companies added women to their boards last year, the rate slowed from previous years, according to Catalyst, a nonprofit group that works to advance women in business.

“When the entire leadership group of a corporation are people with the same perspective, the probability is that there will be fewer new ideas,” said Sheila Wellington, president of Catalyst. “That’s got to be bad in a rapidly changing business environment.”

There are 417 Fortune 500 companies with one or more women on their boards, a gain of 13 companies, or 3%, from the previous year, Catalyst found.

Women hold only 626, or 10.2%, of the total 6,123 seats at the nation’s 500 largest companies. Last year, women held 9.5% of a total of 6,274 seats.

James E. Preston, chairman and chief executive of Avon Products Inc., said he believed the pace of change would pick up since more women are gaining the management experience needed to win top posts.

“When I first began to look for a list of potential board members, it was a thin list, and each of those women were on five boards,” he said in a telephone interview. “Today, that list is an inch thick.”