The Women’s Leadership Forum of the Executive Leadership Council Hosts National Conference on “Potential.Purpose.Power.”

African-American Female Executives Meet to Increase their Representation at Fortune 500 Companies and on Corporate Boards

The Executive Leadership Council (ELC) is hosting 200+ African-American female executives for the annual Women’s Leadership Forum and Black Women On…Power series. The focus of the meeting is leadership development and increasing African-American women’s representation in senior leadership positions in corporate America.

ELC recently launched an effort to promote corporate diversity and this event speaks directly to ELC’s mission and aspirational goals. Over the next five years, the ELC will work to add a minimum of 500 African Americans at the CEO level or to the next two levels below, at each Fortune 500 company, with the goal to increase the number of African American presence on the boards of publicly traded companies.

“The ELC is a national organization of current and former African‐American CEOs and senior executives at Fortune 500 and equivalent companies, and we develop the next generation of African-American business leaders from the classroom to the boardroom,” said Ronald C. Parker, interim president and CEO. “Our goal is to make sure that African Americans have a seat at the decision-making table in corporate America, and that includes African-American women. This group will play an important role in bringing diversity of thinking to the table which spurs innovation and leads to stronger, more profitable corporations and better communities.”

Recent statistics have shown cause for concerns regarding minority representation at the senior level in Fortune 500 companies, especially that of African Americans. One of the key statistics illustrates that African-American women are extremely underrepresented:

• At the CEO level, with more than 35,000 senior executive positions of CEO level to two below within many Fortune 500 companies, the estimates find that only 3.2 percent – or fewer than 800 – are African American, and African-American women are disproportionately underrepresented.
• The Alliance Board for Diversity, of which the ELC is a founding member, reports that since 2004, when representation was poor, the number of board seats has not grown. To make matters worse, the number of Fortune 100 board seats held by African Americans has actually declined.
• Today there are only six African-American CEOs, which constitutes barely one percent of the chief executive officers of the 500 largest U.S. companies. Out of those six, there is one African-American woman- Ursula Burns who heads Xerox.

Laysha Ward, president, community relations for Target, and board chair of The Executive Leadership Foundation, stated, “The Women’s Leadership Forum is a great way to help build our pipeline of corporate leaders. With a focus on Potential. Purpose. Power., we will provide critical tools to help African-American women executives tap into their promise and power as they advance in corporate America.”