28 Women were appointed to a corporate Board of Directors in October 2012, bringing our total so far this year to 305 women, more than the amount of women appointed for the full year of 2011, which was 293. This is a great achievement and shows how many wonderful women are available to be put on boards.
Companies appointing women in October included Move Inc., who appointed Jennifer Dulski (pictured), the leader of the product management team for shopping and product ads at Google after Google acquired Dealmap, which she co-founded and where she was CEO. Other companies appointing women in October were Kellogg, Host Hotels, AOL, Mass Mutual, Children's Place, Motorola Solutions, Chevron, and Wet Seal.
Beating the 2011 total of 293, which had been 30% higher than the 2010 total, is reason to cheer, but we are far from where we need to be. It is reasonable to assume that if most of Europe is reaching for 30% to 40% women on their boards, we should be as well. And the time frame Europe looks at is the next two years. This would make a goal of 40% by 2016 a perfectly reasonable assumption. We need to aim at this number if we are going to make the kind of progress necessary. And don't listen to people who say it is impossible. Thinking big is one of the skills all leaders should have. This is a big target, but it is possible! And it should be done.
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