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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2017 - 2018
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | September 27, 2017 03:22 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Judith L. Schwank and Sen. Jay Costa |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Female corporate leadership resolution |
| We will shortly introduce a resolution encouraging corporate boards in Pennsylvania to to increase the number of women serving as directors and corporate management. Equitable gender representation in corporate leadership has been demonstrated to be vital for regional and global competitiveness. Studies show that more diverse boards produce better financial success and fewer governance issues, and outperform those with no or limited female leaders. However, participation by women at the highest policy levels is far disproportionate to other realities: Women earn most of the post-secondary degrees at each level awarded in our country and fill a majority of all professional level positions despite being substantially less than half of the work force. Among Pennsylvania-based companies listed in the Fortune 1000 in 2016, however, not one in five directors was a woman, while at the 100 largest public companies here, men outnumbered women more than nine to one in the executive offices. A large minority of companies had no women executives at all and a significant number had no women directors. Together and individually, these institutions and companies broadly impact and influence our local and state economies, the vitality of their communities and our overall welfare. The state’s stake in their success is both material and profound. Our resolution recognizes the realities mentioned above and calls on the entire Pennsylvania corporate community - public and private, for- and non-profit alike - to also recognize them, and to work vigorously to strengthen and expand their leadership structures by moving to more gender-diverse membership. We hope you will join in this effort. |
Introduced as SR255